Suma Ikeuchi

Jesus Loves Japan

Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Suma Ikeuchi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 18. Juni 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 160mm x 30mm
• Gewicht: 544g
• ISBN-13: 9781503607965
• ISBN-10: 1503607968
• Artikelnr.: 53539009

Autorenporträt

Suma Ikeuchi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Pilgrims in the Strange Homeland
chapter abstract
This introductory chapter outlines the main questions of the book. How do
Nikkei migrant converts negotiate between their national citizenship,
ethnic identity, and religious subjectivity? What happens when the right to
mobility rests on the ability to embody state-sanctioned origin? How do
their projects of return affect the moral contours of citizenship,
belonging, and diaspora? It also clarifies the social significance of the
book's subject by describing the two growing trends in contemporary
globalization: the return migration in East Asia and the growth of
Pentecostalism in Latin America. The phenomenon of Pentecostal conversion
among Nikkei Brazilian migrants in Japan can thus provide an illuminating
lens to study the dynamic intersection of these two migratory and religious
movements.
2Japanese Blood, Brazilian Birth, and Transnational God
chapter abstract
This chapter offers a historical overview of Japanese-Brazilian migrant
communities and their Pentecostal churches in Japan. Why are there
Brazilians of Japanese descent living in Japan today and why do many of
them convert to Latin American Pentecostalism in their supposed ancestral
homeland? The chapter traces their migratory and religious history starting
in 1908, when the first Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil. It then
covers the key historical events throughout the 20th and the early 21st
century, such as Japan's defeat in the WWII, Nikkeis' ascent to the middle-
and upper-class in Brazil, introduction of the ancestry-based visa by Japan
in 1990, and the flourishing of Pentecostalism among the Nikkei "return"
migrants. The chapter then moves onto the explanation of the ethnographic
context of the research conducted by the author between 2012 and 2014 and
fieldwork methods tht she employed.
3Putting Aside Living
chapter abstract
Most Nikkei Brazilians in Japan are at once labor migrants and "return"
migrants, who dream of a better future while working in low-paying jobs on
visas granted on the basis of their past ancestral ties to the nation. As
such, they grapple with the images of time-the past, the present, and the
future-in complex ways. This chapter delves into these temporal hopes and
anxieties. Specifically, it focuses on a predominant concern regarding time
among migrant converts, namely, "putting aside living (deixar de viver, in
Portuguese)." As many learn to postpone comfort in the present to work long
hours and to save money for the planned return to Brazil, the feeling of
suspended life becomes very common: "I am sacrificing the present to live a
better future one day." The chapter discusses the symptom of temporal
suffocation as a lens to analyze the aspirational temporality of migration.
4Neither Here nor There
chapter abstract
This chapter investigates why the rhetoric of "neither here nor there (nem
lá nem cá)" is so common among Nikkei Brazilian migrants in Japan. First,
it illuminates how Nikkeis have transformed from "Asian whites" with
"culture of discipline" in Brazil to "delinquent Latinos" with "culture of
disorder" in Japan. This loss of ethnic status exacerbates the feeling that
they have lost clear identity. Second, the distance-both physical and
emotional-caused by migratory movement and labor environment fuels the
sense of crisis that their family ties and gender roles are becoming weak
or confusing. Third, the shifting identities of the next generation born or
raised in Japan make many older Brazilian migrants think that the
youth-many of whom are mixed-raced-are becoming too Japanese, losing the
proper Brazilian identity. The chapter elaborates on these three facets
that characterize the predominant narrative of in-between identity among
the migrants.
5Back to the Present
chapter abstract
This chapter discusses the ways in which conversion addresses common
concerns regarding time among Nikkei Brazilian migrants in Japan, including
the symptom of "putting aside living" discussed in Chapter 3. While labor
migration promotes aspirational temporality, the charismatic temporality of
Pentecostal conversion encourages converts to focus on the renewal in the
moment, or "right now, right here." Many converts therefore feel that
Pentecostal practices can help them experience and live the present moment,
which they have been sacrificing for years as labor migrants in pursuit of
the better future. The chapter thus illuminates how the practices and
sensibilities of Pentecostal Christianity responds to the temporal
anxieties of transnational migration. Seen through the lens of time,
migration and conversion become part of the same process of moral subject
formation, thus forming a "temporal tandem."
6The Culture of Love
chapter abstract
While most Nikkei converts claim that love is a timeless "Christian"
emotion, the trope of love seems to carry multiple meanings within their
century-old history of transpacific diaspora. This chapter delves into the
historical registers of Christian love among Nikkei Brazilian migrants in
Japan. Nikkei congregants often contrast Christian love (amor) with
Japanese discipline (educação). Specifically, they suggest that love
augments and overcomes rigid discipline because it is more sincere,
spontaneous, and modern. The chapter situates the experience of Christian
love within the transnational landscape of flexible racial identities,
thereby historicizing affect. In particular, it analyzes various "family
restoration" seminars that Pentecostal churches organize in Japan to combat
the distancing effects of transnational migration-Married for Life, Worship
for Women, and Ancient Paths, to name a few. Migrant converts often believe
that the Christian conception of family and gender roles can heal the
"wounds" of labor migration.
7Of Two Bloods
chapter abstract
To many Nikkeis, their "Japanese blood" carries a contentious meaning as a
marker of their marginal place in the national kinship of Japan. This is in
stark contrast to the other kind of blood that migrant converts frequently
spoke about: the blood of Jesus as the medium of Christian fellowship open
for any "brothers and sisters in faith." This chapter takes the tension
between the two bloods-the "Japanese blood" and the blood of Jesus-as the
point of departure to probe how Nikkei converts are crafting a new sense of
citizenship in their strange ancestral homeland. While the national kinship
locates the source of migrants' moral entitlement in their Japanese
ancestral past, the Pentecostal kinship emphasizes the importance of
continuous conversion in the charismatic present. The chapter will delve
into the ethical aspects of kin-making by investigating the two diverging
logics of relatedness.
8Ancestors of God
chapter abstract
Protestant Christianity is often understood as a culture of sincere
personal belief. This chapter challenges that popular conception by
analyzing the ritual life at a Pentecostal migrant church. Specifically, it
demonstrates that the purview of "faith (fé)" goes beyond the cognized
acceptance of explicit doctrines by elaborating on how some migrants
approach conversion as an act of commitment to social and familial
relationships that they desire to foster. The chapter focuses on one
Okinawan Japanese migrant called Leticia to drive these points home. She
chose to participate in water baptism and convert to Pentecostalism to
follow her already-converted adult sons and to maintain "the harmony in
family." Migrants like Leticia show that the charismatic faith in this
ethnographic context consists of multiple layers, personal as well
relational. It is this multiplicity that makes it possible for migrants
from diverse cultural backgrounds to envision and construct "one community
in faith."
9Accompanied Self
chapter abstract
While the notion of the individual figures prominently in the debate about
Christian personhood in anthropology, the concept of "relational selves"
has shaped much of the existing literature on Japanese self. This chapter
takes this seeming divergence between "individual Christian" and
"interdependent Japanese" as the point of departure. It probes how Nikkei
Brazilian converts narrate their subject positions vis-à-vis the Japanese
majority by engaging multiple ideals of personhood. Interestingly, both
migrant converts and their Japanese neighbors often articulated their
understandings about authentic self by discussing the category of religion.
The chapter therefore brings together religion, authenticity, and
personhood to illuminate how the Brazilian and Japanese residents in Japan
envision the ethics of the self. It concludes that Pentecostal Brazilian
migrants uphold that the self should ideally be "accompanied" by the divine
Other and discusses glossolalia as one common practice used to foster this
vision of accompanied personhood.
10Jesus Loves Japan
chapter abstract
This concluding chapter revisits and elaborates on the theme of moral
mobility. As the ethnographic expositions in the preceding chapters have
shown, mobility is at once spatial, temporal, affective, and ethical. The
argument is that movement itself would be simply inconceivable without such
moral registers. "Jesus ama o Japão (Jesus loves Japan)" is a phrase that
Nikkei migrant converts use in a wide range of contexts. Some migrant
converts exclaim the phrase in a triumphant tone while evangelizing
Japanese passersby in public; others utter it more hesitantly while
reminiscing about the sense of in-betweenness that had haunted them in
Japan. In other words, migrant converts resort to the same phrase-"Jesus
loves Japan"-to generatively articulate the ethical dimensions of their
mobility. The concluding chapter explores how such experiences of moral
mobility may be redrawing the boundaries of Nikkei diaspora in the present.