Home work: post-Fukushima constructions of Furusato by Japanese nationals in Belgium

Abstract

Rogers Brubaker remarks that “as a category of practice, ‘diaspora’ is used to make claims, to articulate projects, to formulate expectations, to mobilize energies, to appeal to loyal- ties.” It is in times of crisis and trauma, we will argue in this paper, that these practices con- struct and intensify an awareness of community, generated by emotion, feelings, and affect. When the 3/11 Triple Disaster struck Japan in 2011, Japanese nationals living abroad took a dia- sporic stance and immediately showed their commitment and loyalty to the homeland by organ- izing fundraising and charity events as well as moral support activities. Interpreting these events from the perspective of gift-giving (Marcel Mauss), it can be argued that remittances and material gifts served to show solidarity of an individual as well as a group to the homeland (furusato) and thus strengthening the feeling of belonging to it. Yet, what is the “homeland” that they support? The idea of homeland is a concept that is culturally and thus historically negotiated, and dia- sporic communities tend to develop a romantic idea of it. In Japanese, the English term “home- land” would be captured by the term furusato, which already embraces a strong element of nos- talgia and memory (similar to the German “Heimat”). It originally refers to one’s place of birth and is recently used to point to the “idea of originary, emotive space.” Based on fifteen in-depth interviews with both short-term and long-term Japanese residents in Belgium, this paper sets out to analyze the effect the triple disaster of 2011 had on the Japanese diasporic communities in Belgium