Sachiko Sone

Freedom Found? The Later-life Transnational Migration of Japanese Women to Western Australia and Thailand

Despite being a relatively recent research topic, studies on transnational later-life retirement have noted the diversity of the phenomenon. This study of Japanese women in later-life moving to live in Western Australia and Thailand adds to the diversity by examining the gendered dimension of the phenomenon. Through an analysis of the dominant narrative of “seeking for freedom” in their motivation to leave Japan, the paper examines what are the expressions of freedom as perceived by the women and the challenges confronting them in later-life migration. Their subjective experiences reflect migration in later-life as a dynamic process, and later-life migration as more complex than mere classification of their motivations into amenity-seeking or otherwise.

Coal Mining Women Speak Out: Economic Change and Women Miners of Chikuho, Japan

History has not often been kind to the coal miners of Japan. They have as a group at times been characterized in economic labor histories as “illiterate peasant workers” or as “premodern laborers.” Female coal miners have not only been described in extreme terms as shameless and lacking in feminine dignity, but they have also been celebrated as “super women,” and as fulfilling the Meiji1 ideal of “Good Wife, Wise Mother.”2 This essay looks beyond these stereotypical images into the reality of the lives of ordinary coal mining women, as seen through the eyes of two second-generation coal miners whose lives, with those of their families, span the final thirty years of the Japanese coal mining industry and encompass experience of its preindustrial and modern phases. The essay argues that categorization of the women miners under labels has overlooked their resilience and their capacity to adapt to their circumstances, and to exercise a degree of control over their lives.