Settlement Process and Networks of Amami Migrants: A Case Study of Homeland-based Associations in Kobe before World War II

Abstract

In this study, I elucidate the settlement process of Amami migrants in Kobe before World War II. Next, I analyze Amami settlers’ reactions to their host society by observing the activity of homeland-based associations and the dominant discourse about their own identity by the elite class of Amami settlers. The number of migrants from the Amami Islands to Kobe increased rapidly during the 1920s when Kobe industrialized and some areas were formed where Amami settlers were concentrated. This resulted from chain migration that is based on using connections as a means to find work and housing.

In borderlands like the Amami Islands, the inhabitants frequently face situations where they are ‘othered’ in the process of being subsumed within a modern nation consisting largely of a majority people. This exerts great influence upon the construction of their identity. The purpose of this paper is to examine dynamic aspects of identity and networks that were constructed within the formation process of the community of Amami migrants.

The case of Amami migrants illustrates a formation process different from the spontaneous one that originates with the relationship established before migration. With the creation of these various scale communities based on territorial bonds, nested commonness became structured. Moreover, many homeland-based associations for Amami settlers advocated assimilation into mainland Japan for the discipline and life-improvement of non-elite Amami migrants. This paper reveals the ambivalent and multiple aspects of the identity of Amami migrants ; they hope not only to assimilate into their host society but also to maintain their solidarity and their culture. This is one of the characteristics of the identity of Amami migrants. This characteristic emerged in a dynamic process of migration that was structured in a complex interaction among many factors.