The Ethnic Relations of Okinawans and Urban Policy: Focusing on the Contexts of Colonialism and Neoliberalism in Tsurumi, Yokohama

Abstract

This paper discusses the effect of urban policy on ethnic relations in the case of the Okinawan community in Tsurumi, Yokohama. In Tsurumi, there live two kinds of Okinawans: Okinawan Japanese and Okinawan Latinos. Until the second half of the 2010s, there were almost no connections between them. However, from 2016, some Latinos began to participate in the Tsurumi Okinawan Association and in that same year the association met with the Okinawan Association in Brazil for the first time. This paper elucidates such a reformation of ethnic relations as occurring not only in the context of colonialism but also in the context of a neoliberal urban policy, and it suggests the need to focus on urban policy when investigating ethnic relations.