Dasgupta, Arnab
(2017)
"We Are The World Itself": The
Construction Of "Good" Citizenship And
Deviations From It In Ergo Proxy.
International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS), 13 (2).
pp. 73-91.
ISSN ISSN: 1823-6243
Abstract
Anime is the dominant medium of pop-culture expression in modern Japan, lending
itself readily to genres such as romance and comedy, as well as advanced concepts
of social and political discourse. At the same time, the rise of modern anime,
especially science fction anime coincided with the coming to the forefront of the
issue of immigration. This article attempts to understand how the two phenomena
may be intertwined in the dialectical process of analysing and re-analysing national
identity and belonging, through a critical interpretation of the anime series Ergo
Proxy, released in 2006. The ideas outlined below are relevant both to critical
discourse studies and for prospective solutions in the feld of immigration policy.
With Japan's economy going into a tailspin due to the explosion of the housing
bubble in the 1990s, coupled with the detrimental effects of negative population
growth, more and more industries found themselves reliant on immigrant labour
for their survival, even as national political winds blew decisively against opening
the country to immigrants, due to unforeseen effects on "the Japanese way of life."
As Japan entered the second decade of its persistent recessionary state, and the
government remained impassive to calls issued from several quarters of society to
liberalise immigration policy, even though many of these workers were urgently
required in such important sectors as construction and healthcare, clinging instead
to outdated racist notions of "pure Japaneseness," a trickle of foreign workers
continued to enter Japan, becoming subject to abuse and human rights violations as
their existence continues to be systematically erased.
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