Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture Lecture Series 2016

The everyday politics of Chinese migrant media practices in Japan

Jamie Coates, Waseda University

July 12th, 2016
6:30pm-8:00pm
10-301 Sophia University Yotsuya Campus

The Sino-Japanese context is not only constituted by governmental relations but also the ways
everyday Chinese citizens imagine their place in the world. This presentation explores how these
issues are reflected in the media practices of Chinese migrants in Japan and its implications for
how we understand everyday politics. Many Chinese migrants are suspicious of formal politics,
whether at an international level or local level. Although not explicitly political, their social
media practices show implicit political discussions about the differences between Chinese and
Japanese people, and broader questions of personhood, desire, morality and modernity. I focus on how
these logics have played out in relation to events over the past two years, arguing that these
debates reflect what both Turner and Graeber have suggested are the foundations of politics itself –
the establishment of what value is, and the question of what makes life worth living.

Jamie Coates focuses on grounded approaches to mobility in East Asia, with a particular focus on
theorizing the relationship between cosmopolitan attitudes and experiences fostered through the
movement of things, people and meanings. A PhD graduate from the Department of Anthropology (CHL,
CAP) at the Australian National University, his research to date has covered Chinese migrant
communities in Tokyo and the influence of media flows between China and Japan. He is currently a
JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow in the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University, and co
-convenor for the European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA) Anthropology and Mobility
Network (ANTHROMOB)

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