Is Japan prepared for an ethnically-diverse society? The volume examines the past and future trajectory of Japan's immigration and integration policies and related institutions, taking a cross-disciplinary approach in social sciences. The authors highlight critical issues and challenges that the nation is facing as a result of the government's inarticulate migrant-acceptance policy, e.g. in the fields of refugee policies, multicultural education and disaster protection. How can the situatio Is Japan prepared for an ethnically-diverse society? The volume examines the past and future trajectory of Japan's immigration and integration policies and related institutions, taking a cross-disciplinary approach in social sciences. The authors highlight critical issues and challenges that the nation is facing as a result of the government's n be improved? The book investigates the changes and initiatives needed to build a resilient policy regime for a liberal, pluralistic, and inclusive Japan. Japan, a long-time immigration laggard, is opening its gate to foreign workers, both skilled and less-skilled, to address its chronic labor shortage through legal and policy changes. Both government and society are awkwardly exploring "multicultural coexistence"-the harmony of Japanese nationals and others of foreign origin. Immigrant integration processes are raising manifold concerns, revealing challenges in terms of labor, welfare, education, culture, and human rights. Yet, the government has downplayed the nation's increasingly multicultural reality while support institutions remain ineffective. Japan's approach, heavily dependent on grassroots initiatives and goodwill, is clearly unsustainable. This co-authored volume examines the evolution of Japan's immigration and integration policies and their social outcomes from cross-disciplinary and multi-level perspectives. Researchers from the social sciences and humanities address crucial local and national issues that emerge from the matrix of "immigration and integration" such as refugee policies, deportation, multicultural education, disaster protection, and local activism.

This book is one of the first ethnographies written on the life of farmers in rural Southern Vietnam since the economic reform in the 1980s. It investigates how social, economic and political factors affect the farmers' life in the Mekong Delta in the late socialist era with a particularly focus on the family, which serves as the basic and most significant social unit for the farmers. Dealing with classical anthropological topics of kinship and family, the book examines them as dynamic institutions. With vivid illustrations of the village life, family farming, education of children, jobs outside of farming and everyday politics, it presents new and different pictures of the current Vietnamese family under rapid social changes. The book will contribute to the current ethnographical research in Vietnam and Southeast Asia and also be of particular interest to those working on society and culture in the geographical region from broader disciplines. It will also appeal to readers who are interested in such topics as late socialism, social transformation, and rural development.