In this timely and insightful new book, Markus Bell presents the case study of Korean-Japanese - "Zainichi" - who have escaped North Korea in the years following the end of the Cold War. Through building alliances and long-distance relationships, Zainichi returnees resist forced integration and push back against life-threatening political purges to forge new ways of belonging.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Notes on the Text and Confidentiality
Introduction: When There’s Nothing Left
Chapter 1. Remembering the Exodus
Chapter 2. Marriage and Mobility
Chapter 3. Becoming a Foreigner in North Korea
Chapter 4. Choosing Japan
Chapter 5. Freedom, the Impossible Gift
Chapter 6. Mobility, Memory, and the Fractured Self
Conclusion: Reimagining Refugees: From Crisis to Solution in Modern Japan
Appendix: Notes on Methodology
References
Index
About the Author :
Markus Bell is an anthropologist specializing in migration, with over a decade of experience working with displaced people and migrant workers in the Asia Pacific. He has taught at the Australian National University, University of Sheffield, and Goethe University Frankfurt.
Review :
"The ethnographic descriptions are deft, the historical contexts are well drawn, and the emphasis on the multi-generational dynamics of migration flow is exactly on target. The book will certainly be required reading for specialists on Japanese and Korean society and politics but will also be valuable for those interested in refugee issues--especially 'returns' of various kinds--and for those assessing the role of international organizations in refugee situations, which can have troubling moral implications. The insights on refugee resilience and the restructuring of memories are also valuable...Highly Recommended." - Choice
"Overall, Bell combines interviews, thoughtful descriptions, and analysis to provide a meaningful perspective on our understanding a little discussed aspect of East Asian migration. This book explores displacement and migration as well the strategies used by migrants as individuals and families." - Journal of Contemporary Asia
"Outstanding - academically excellent, full of new research findings, theoretically sophisticated and very well written." - Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Australian National University
"The ethnographic descriptions are deft, the historical contexts are well drawn, and the emphasis on the multi-generational dynamics of migration flow is exactly on target. The book will certainly be required reading for specialists on Japanese and Korean society and politics but will also be valuable for those interested in refugee issues-especially 'returns' of various kinds-and for those assessing the role of international organizations in refugee situations, which can have troubling moral implications. The insights on refugee resilience and the restructuring of memories are also valuable...Highly Recommended." - Choice
"Overall, Bell combines interviews, thoughtful descriptions, and analysis to provide a meaningful perspective on our understanding a little discussed aspect of East Asian migration. This book explores displacement and migration as well the strategies used by migrants as individuals and families." - Journal of Contemporary Asia
"Outstanding - academically excellent, full of new research findings, theoretically sophisticated and very well written." - Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Australian National University
