Individual Paper
8. Negotiating Margins: Representations, Resistances, Agencies
‘Soft power’ has been widely used by researchers to explain, among other problems, how states can use certain resources, such as political values or culture, to wield power over others. If a country has the capacity to alter or produce behaviour in a foreign public, soft power could be used for political, economic or diplomatic purposes. In this line, the number of international students or migrants residing in a country can be indicators to measure a country’s soft power: can a foreign culture be the reason that makes someone leave their country and make another setting their new (temporary or not) home?
Research on migration as a reflection of soft power – as an outcome of soft power – is still scarce. Drawing on the framework suggested by Lee (2009), this work intends to problematize the place of Japanese soft power in people’s decision-making of migrating to Japan by examining the case of Chileans residents in Japan. They are a small but diverse group comprised by researchers, students, spouses of Japanese nationals and Working Holiday visa holders, among others. Between 2012 and 2022, this population has increased substantially, whose majority is between the ages of 20 to 39 years, which arguably could inform of the generation that was exposed to Japanese popular culture and animation since the 1990s. This work intends to present preliminary reflections on the place of migrants in relation to Japanese soft power and how and why their experiences and agency matter.
Isabel Cabaña Rojas
Ritsumeikan University, Japan