Marvin Sterling

MARVIN STERLING, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, was awarded funding in October 2022 to aid research on “Narrating the Afro-Japanese “Hafu” Experience: Race, Nation and Multipolar Globalization in Contemporary Japan.” This study, conducted between July and December 2023, explored representations of and, focally, by mixed-race Black-Japanese individuals in contemporary Japan. The primary questions were as follows. What common discursive themes or repertoires emerge from these representations? What might they reveal about how Black-Japanese, other mixed-race Japanese, and majority Japanese people imagine “Japaneseness” in ethnic, national, racial and other terms today? What insight does national representation of Black-Japanese public figures to the international community reveal about Japan, long characterized as monoethnic and monoracial, as a society undergoing a process of multiculturalization? Principal data gathering goals were met. These included conducting interviews with 27 Black-Japanese mixed-race adults; further, more in-depth semi-structured interviews with a smaller number of interviewees drawn from this larger set; and gathering observational data on participants’ residential, work, recreational and other spaces. Methods also included collecting data for content analysis of Black-Japanese self-expression such as in music, the visual arts, and in social media, and for analysis of mass-media content such as television programs, magazine articles and advertising centered on Black-Japanese people. The study also included archival / documentary research historicizing the Black-Japanese presence in the country especially in the postwar period.