A Study on the Perspective for Zainichi Literary Studies in the High-Mobility Era

In the high-mobility era when the movement of population and cultural hybridization across the borderlines of nation-states is generalized on the strength of the advanced mobility technologies, studies based on the perspective of diaspora, locality, or minority became the mainstream of Zainichi literary studies in this era, as the nationalistic perspective became lose its theoretical power. Specifically, the research methodologies based on such concepts as locality and minority attained their theoretical power by distancing themselves from nationalistic issues and, at the same time, focusing on the individual and local issues of Zainichi in the Japanese society. Based on this examination on the previous studies, this paper suggested an alternative perspective of intersectionality. As such, a move of the perspective for Zainichi literary studies from the nationalistic to the diaspora, minority, and locality, and, finally, to the intersectionality implies the shift of problematique from the displacement or dislocation to the re-location. From this shifted perspective, thus, Zainichi literary studies can explore not just their status of oppression and discrimination, but also designate a form of co-existence and symbiosis with the Japanese and the other minorities.