Japan's war orphans and new overseas Chinese: history, identification and (multi)ethnicity
Japanese "war orphans" are people of Japanese parentage who were stranded in China as children following the end of World War Two. This dissertation discusses war orphans in terms of their historical circumstances in China, their belated "repatriation" to Japan, and the difficulties of their post-resettlement lives there. Throughout this historical trajectory, the experiences of the war orphans suggest the ways in which Sino-Japanese ethnicity and history are configured and contested. This dynamic can be observed in war orphan political activism over the terms of their official identification, in Japanese volunteer efforts on behalf of the war orphans and other immigrants, in the education of war orphan children and grandchildren in Japanese schools, and in the relationship between war orphans and other recent migrants from China (so-called "New Overseas Chinese").
- Anthropology