This book investigates the experience of Japanese women who have immigrated to Australia through marriage to a local partner. Based on long-term participant observations gathered with a Japanese ethnic association in Sydney, and on in-depth interviews with the association's members, it examines the ways in which the women remould themselves in Australia by constructing gendered selves that reflect their unique migratory circumstances through cross-border marriage. In turn, the book argues that the women tend to embrace expressions of Japanese femininity that they once viewed negatively, and that this is due to their lack of social skills and access to the cultural capital of mainstream Australian society. Re-molding the self through conventional Japanese notions of gender ironically provides them with a convincing identity: that of minority migrant women. Nevertheless, by analyzing these women's engagement with a Japanese ethnic association in a suburb of Sydney, the book also reveals a nuanced sense of ambivalence; a tension between the women's Japanese community and their lives in Australia. Accordingly, the book provides a fresh perspective on interdisciplinary issues of gender and migration in a globalized world, and engages with a wide range of academic disciplines including: sociology of migration; sociology of culture; cultural anthropology; cultural studies; Japanese studies; Asian studies; gender studies; family studies; migration studies and qualitative methodologies.

This thesis explores the rise and transformation of Japanese migration to Australia since the 1980s. This thesis particularly investigates the experience of Japanese women marriage migrants: women who have immigrated to Australia through marriage to a local partner. Based on participant observation with a Japanese ethnic association in Sydney's west between 2007 and 2009, and on in-depth interviews with the association's members, this thesis examines the ways in which the women re-mould themselves in Australia by constructing gendered selves which reflect their unique migratory circumstances through cross-national marriage. Since the 1980s, Japanese international migration has transformed into "lifestyle" migration, that kind of migration undertaken for the sake of an alternative lifestyle and the consumption of different socio-cultural experiences in the new country. On this assumption, this thesis finds that the increase in Japanese women migrants is an amalgamation of two motivations. These women not only sought a chance to avoid or overcome conventional gender inequalities, which are still prevalent in contemporary Japanese society; they also regarded going overseas as an opportunity to fashion a desirable lifestyle on their own. Consequently, while many of them arrived in Australia with the view to staying only temporarily, they decided to continue their movement towards a new lifestyle through marriage to a local partner. This thesis examines the stories of Japanese women marriage migrants after their migration to Australia, discovering that the women tend to take recourse to expressions of Japanese femininity that they once viewed negatively, and that this is tied to their lack of social skills and access to the cultural capital of mainstream society. Re-moulding the self through conventional Japanese notions of gender ironically provided them with a convincing identity, that of a minority migrant woman. Nevertheless, through an analysis of members' engagement with an association of Japanese women marriage migrants in a suburb of Sydney's west, this thesis reveals a nuanced sense of ambivalence expressed by these Japanese women: between their Japanese community and Australian life. This results in a dilemma for these women: they negotiate between their "given" Japanese femininity and the "chosen" images of self that can be achieved in their new life in Australia.

This book investigates the experience of Japanese women who have immigrated to Australia through marriage to a local partner. Based on long-term participant observations gathered with a Japanese ethnic association in Sydney, and on in-depth interviews with the association’s members, it examines the ways in which the women remould themselves in Australia by constructing gendered selves that reflect their unique migratory circumstances through cross-border marriage. In turn, the book argues that the women tend to embrace expressions of Japanese femininity that they once viewed negatively, and that this is due to their lack of social skills and access to the cultural capital of mainstream Australian society. Re-molding the self through conventional Japanese notions of gender ironically provides them with a convincing identity: that of minority migrant women. Nevertheless, by analyzing these women’s engagement with a Japanese ethnic association in a suburb of Sydney, the book also reveals a nuanced sense of ambivalence; a tension between the women’s Japanese community and their lives in Australia. Accordingly, the book provides a fresh perspective on interdisciplinary issues of gender and migration in a globalized world, and engages with a wide range of academic disciplines including: sociology of migration; sociology of culture; cultural anthropology; cultural studies; Japanese studies; Asian studies; gender studies; family studies; migration studies and qualitative methodologies.

This study presents an ethnographic account of a fresh breed of emigrants who have left Japan to settle in Australia in pursuit of a better quality of life. They differ from "economic migrants" who went overseas before the 1970s for economic reasons but represent new types of "lifestyle migrants" who seek to enjoy a more easygoing, carefree life abroad. Based on some 200 interviews, the study attempts to portray the participants' joy and sorrow, felicity and frustration as seen through their own eyes and expressed with their own words and phrases. The Japanese version of the book won the Asia-Pacific Publication Award in 1995.

This book tells the story of Michi, one of 650 Japanese war brides who arrived in Australia in the early 1950s. The women met Australian servicemen in post-war Japan and decided to migrate to Australia as wives and fiancées to start a new life. In 1953, when Michi reached Sydney Harbour by boat with her two Japanese-born children, she knew only one person in Australia: her husband. She did not know any English so she quickly learned her first English phrase, "I like Australia", in the car on the way from the harbour to meet her Australian family. In the last fifty years, she brought up seven children while the family moved from one part of Australia to another. Now, in her eighties, she leads a peaceful life in Adelaide, but remains active in many ways. Her voice is full of life and she looks and sounds much younger than her age.

This book investigates the experience of Japanese women who have immigrated to Australia through marriage to a local partner. Based on long-term participant observations gathered with a Japanese ethnic association in Sydney, and on in-depth interviews with the association’s members, it examines the ways in which the women remould themselves in Australia by constructing gendered selves that reflect their unique migratory circumstances through cross-border marriage. In turn, the book argues that the women tend to embrace expressions of Japanese femininity that they once viewed negatively, and that this is due to their lack of social skills and access to the cultural capital of mainstream Australian society. Re-molding the self through conventional Japanese notions of gender ironically provides them with a convincing identity: that of minority migrant women. Nevertheless, by analyzing these women’s engagement with a Japanese ethnic association in a suburb of Sydney, the book also reveals a nuanced sense of ambivalence; a tension between the women’s Japanese community and their lives in Australia. Accordingly, the book provides a fresh perspective on interdisciplinary issues of gender and migration in a globalized world, and engages with a wide range of academic disciplines including: sociology of migration; sociology of culture; cultural anthropology; cultural studies; Japanese studies; Asian studies; gender studies; family studies; migration studies and qualitative methodologies.

This volume challenges the dominant discourse that perceives Asian women as either "mail-order" brides or overseas workers. Providing the first sustained critique of the artificial analytical division between brides and workers, the book demonstrates women's transition from brides to workers and from workers to brides. Focusing on how women workers use marriage as a strategy to gain citizenship and how migrants for marriage become workers, the authors present these modern Asian women in their multidimensional roles as wives, workers, mothers, and citizens.