Cultural Essentialism in Intercultural Relations

Fred Dervin, Regis Machart, Fred Dervin, Regis Machart

• Editorial: Palgrave Macmillan
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137498601
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Sociology

The concept of culture has long been criticized, with many scholars reformulating it or discarding it entirely. The field of intercultural communication and relations, however, still relies on culture to examine interculturality and this volume provides a comprehensive examination of the problems that the concept poses today.

Part I

Cultural Essentialism in the Judiciary

1

Cultural Essentialism and Foreigner-as-Criminal Discourse

Damian J. Rivers

Introduction

With a relatively broad focus, this chapter explores the consequences of cultural essentialism – “a system of belief grounded in a conception of human beings as ‘cultural’ (and under certain conditions territorial and national) subjects, i.e., bearers of a culture, located within a bordered world, which defines them and differentiates them from others” (Grillo, 2003, p. 158) – in relation to identifying culture as an excuse through foreigner-as-criminal discourse in Japan. Demonstrated are the ways in which powerful public figures (e.g., politicians, lawmakers, police officers, and criminal court judges) exploit a particular brand of foreigner-as-criminal discourse – paralleling their “politics of anti-multiculturalism” (Eisenberg, 2009, p. 78) – as an integral part of the ideological management of the nation-state.

One particular conceptualisation of culture is that it “reveals itself to be a thing the existence of which in space and time can never be demonstrated ... a fiction that exists to gratify a passion or an institutional demand for certain kinds of interpretive work” (Herbert, 1991, p. 11). While this conceptualisation is admirable for the attention given to the interpretational demands of culture, it seems important to provide a more practical identification with the invention of culture (Wagner, 1975) on account of its susceptibility to manipulation and corruption. This chapter therefore identifies with Edward Said’s position on culture due to its contextual relevance drawn from the confrontational nature of cultural politics which encourage “‘skirmishes,’ if not wars” (Benhabib, 2002, p. 1) between and within different cultural groups.

In time, culture comes to be associated, often aggressively, with the nation or the state; this differentiates “us” from “them,” almost always with some degree of xenophobia. Culture in this sense is a source of identity, and a rather combative one at that, as we see in recent “returns” to culture and tradition. These “returns” accompany rigorous codes of intellectual and moral behaviour that are opposed to the permissiveness associated with such relatively liberal philosophies as multiculturalism and hybridity (Said, 1994, p. xiii).

Emphasising the confrontational nature of cultural politics, this chapter posits that the sociologically reductive premise underpinning the foreigner-as-criminal discourse is an unconscious belief that all hosts of an assumed Japanese culture – bestowed at birth under very specific conditions – are inherently innocent in matters of crime and criminality, and thus culture as an excuse serves to exonerate. On the other hand, the same belief supposes that hosts of an assumed foreign culture – reductively defined on the basis of deviations from the Japanese norm – represent the inherently guilty in matters of crime and criminality and thus culture as an excuse serves to condemn. Originating from such a division, the foreigner-as-criminal discourse in Japan can be suggested to fulfil a nation-serving social duty aimed at reinforcing the “dominant ethnocultural conception of Japanese nationhood” (Kashiwazaki, 2013, p. 31) whereby those who are culturally familiar are conditioned to be fearful of the dangers presented by the culturally unfamiliar.

Crime and criminality in Beautiful Country Japan

Among the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, Japan as a post-industrial nation and “one of the most resistant to outsiders” (Eisenberg, 2009, p. 78) is a relative latecomer to the complex issues of immigration and thus continues to have “one of the most highly restrictive immigration policies among advanced industrial countries” (Tsuda & Cornelius, 2004, p. 449). Yonezawa (2009) outlines how Japan has taken advantage of principles underpinning conventional economic theory through the selective importation of migrant workers in order to offset economic fluctuations¹. During 2009, it was estimated that 1.7% of Japan’s 127-million population were foreign nationals with 31% of this group being Chinese, 27% Korean and 12% Brazilian (mostly of Japanese ancestry) (OECD, 2011). Serving as an example of the treatments discussed by Yonezawa (2009), the OECD report highlights how the “number of Brazilians in Japan fell by more than 14% in 2009, as reduced employment opportunities led some to return to Brazil” (OECD, 2011, p. 4)².

Despite evidence indicating that Japan has long been a multicultural and multiethnic state (see Denoon, Hudson, McCormack, & Morris-Suzuki, 2001; Graburn, Ertl, & Tierney, 2008; Lee, Murphy-Shigematsu, & Befu, 2006; Matthews & White, 2004), domestic discourses of multiculturalism have been obstructed by frequent calls for a-return-to-the-mono-traditional and constrained by lingering beliefs of cultural and ethnic homogeneity. Many of those endowed with the power to construct/engineer/interpret/fabricate influential representations of the nation-state have tended to approach this multicultural and multiethnic truth as one which threatens to pull back the dust-ridden veil of monistic discourse demanded by “the ideology of the establishment” (Manabe & Befu, 1992, p. 100). In other words, and demonstrating how “the cultural actor is a person of and from the past” (Appadurai, 2013, p. 180), traditional powerbrokers have assumed the role of nation-state gatekeeper in relation to matters of an idealised sociocultural and ethnocultural reality. This has typically been achieved through embracing an “ideology and sensibility that speaks to us of the present by fabricating the past” (Bayart, 2005, p. 83).

During the period between the 1960s and the early 1990s, a domestic and international perception developed positioning Japan as one of the safest countries in the world. Alongside domestic rationalisations that Japanese society – on account of cultural reasons – was beyond the crime afflictions affecting other industrialised societies, international observers also utilised explanations of Japanese cultural exceptionalism such as belonging to a “defensive, collectivistic shame culture” (Leonardsen, 2006, p. 185) to speculate as to why the crime rate appeared so comparatively low (see Bayley, 1976; Braithwaite, 1989; Finch, 2001; Komiya, 1999). While theories of cultural exceptionalism may have sufficiently dampened domestic anxiety related to crime and criminality during economic upturn, they have failed to have the same impact during subsequent periods of economic downturn. For example, since the end of Japan’s original lost decade period (see Kneller, McGowan, Inui, & Matsuura, 2012) there have been considerable shifts in public perceptions of domestic crime and criminality. Hamai and Ellis (2006) outline how public perception of a worsening crime situation increased from 19% in 1998 to 40% in 2004 (on the basis of data collected from the Public Relations Office of the Japanese Cabinet) despite evidence indicating that actual crime committed – not to be conflated with crime reported or crime solved – was reducing throughout the same period³ (see Xenakis and Cheliotis (2013) for evidence of similar dynamics within contemporary Greece).

This loss of faith in Japanese cultural exceptionalism combined with increased public anxiety surrounding domestic crime and criminality has since provided fertile ground for authoritarian calls for a return to the way things were in better times. For example, recent Japanese Prime Ministers have demonstrated a strong rhetorical interest – as such discourse is deemed to bring reward – in restoring national pride and confidence through returning Japan to the imagined position of the world’s safest country. During a General Policy Speech to the 161st Session of the Diet, Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō proclaimed that while “the increasing number of incidences of crime has actually reduced last year, we must revive ‘Japan, the safest county in the world’ through enhancing anti-crime measures” (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2004, p. 31). Likewise, in an inaugural Policy Speech to the 165th Session of the Diet, Prime Minister Abe Shinzō declared, “I will do my best to restore Japan to the safest country in the world by strengthening co-operation with local communities and cracking down on crimes” (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2006, p. 31). After Abe Shinzō’s resignation and the short tenure of Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo, Prime Minister Asō Tarō used a Policy Speech to the 171st Session of the Diet to claim how through “promoting new countermeasures for crime, we will strive to become ‘Japan, the world’s safest country’” (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2009, p. 46). This kind of sustained political interest confirms that domestic and international perceptions of crime and criminality within Japan are placed high on the political agenda regardless of the actual social conditions of the period.⁴

Constant threats and crime statistics

The most prominent source for crime statistics in Japan are the National Police Agency (NPA) White Papers which have provided annual reports since 1973. Concerning crimes committed by foreigners, distinctions are made in the first instance according to visa-status categorisation. The rainichi gaikokujin [visiting foreigners] category includes tourists but excludes US military personnel, permanent residents, and others who have an unknown status of stay. The sonoato no gaikokujin [other foreigners] category is inclusive of Japan-born foreign nationals and other long-term residents. Official crime statistics are collected for both of these groups and are then broken down by perpetrator nationality and type of crime, thus facilitating the association of certain nationalities with certain types of criminal activity.

For the most part, the foreigner-as-criminal discourse is concerned with the crime statistics of and issues surrounding the visiting-foreigner population, despite the fact that the visiting-foreigner category is only responsible for only a fractional segment (between 2% and 8%) of all crimes committed within Japan (Yamamoto, 2010). The selective attention given to this particular crime category can therefore be seen as politically motivated in that crime and criminality can be directly linked to immigration issues. Direct links of this nature are powerful in providing a platform for the systematic psychological criminalisation of all individuals within Japan whose appearance is not perceived as being Japanese. Notwithstanding a 60.5% reduction in foreigners overstaying their visa between 2000–2010, the National Police Agency White Paper (2010) cautions that “a large number of foreign nationals are still coming to Japan to work, and quite a lot of them are working in Japan illegally” (p. 10). On account of methodological ambiguity the data presented within such reports should be considered questionable and susceptible to manipulation.

The most basic data problem in Japan is that the official statistics used to support the charge of crime by foreigners are not sufficiently disaggregated to make the case. A second problem lies in the most persistent version of the linkage argument that unskilled, male, illegal workers and overstayers are the primary crime threat in Japan. A third problem is that crime statistics tend to be selectively portrayed in NPA and Ministry of Justice publications in such a way as to convey the greatest sense of a foreign threat. These publications are in turn cited by other government ministries and become the source for media headlines on the threat of crime by foreigners. (Friman, 1996, pp. 970–971)

Concerns such as those listed above are also shared by Yamamoto (2004) who states that the threat of crime and criminality presented “by foreigners to Japanese society is not of the magnitude the official discourse claims it to be. Nevertheless, the political discourse keeps equating the growth of the foreign population with the deterioration of public safety in Japan” (p. 47). The United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights (2006) has also raised objection to the manner in which the “National Police Agency’s press releases exaggerate the role of foreigners in criminal offences by mentioning that crimes by foreigners were worsening, or widespread, spreading thus the wrong impression that foreigners are responsible for the country’s security problems” (p. 15). Ignorant to such criticisms, the foreigner-as-criminal discourse disseminated throughout the National Police Agency publications has remained consistently active. In the introduction to the National Police Agency White Paper (2010), the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency (Andō Takaharu) draws upon a kind of hyperbolic discourse that would not be out of context during wartime or within a discussion of an imminent enemy invasion of national territory:

Looking at the current state of crime involving foreigners in Japan, it is apparent that criminal organizations working on a global scale are invading Japan and that those already operating in this country are internationalizing their ranks ... posing grave threats to public order ... [the report] ... also explains what the police are doing to fight this immense threat ... The section entitled “The Frontlines of Police Activity” contains articles featuring the honest feelings of the police men and women who are actually working on the street to protect Japan. (p.1)

Even during those periods when crimes committed by outsiders/strangers/foreigners are shown to be on a downward trajectory, the National Police Agency makes questionable efforts to legitimise their anxiety-inducing counter-arguments aimed at maintaining the perceived criminal threat posed by the culturally unfamiliar. In documentation concerning how illegal residents “accounted for 8.6% of foreign nationals visiting Japan arrested for Penal Code offenses in 2009, declining 16.7 percentage points over the last decade,” the same paragraph describes how “illegal residents accounted for 42.2% of burglary offenses, demonstrating that the involvement of illegal residents in crimes that make Japanese people feel less...