Hybrid Identities and Adolescent Girls Being 'Half' in Japan

This book examines the ethnic, gendered, and embodied 'hybrid' identities of 'half-Japanese' girls in Japan, colourfully narrated through their own voices. The girls struggle to positively construct their identities into positions of control over disempowering discourses of 'otherness', while also celebrating cultural capital as they negotiate their constructed identities of 'Japaneseness', 'whiteness' and 'halfness/doubleness'.

Laurel D. Kamada is a Lecturer Professor at Tohoku University in Japan. She has published in such areas as: bilingualism and multiculturalism in Japan; gender and ethnic studies; marginalised (hybrid and gendered) identities in Japan; and discourses of ethnic embodiment and masculinity. Her other interests include theoretical and methodological discourse analytic approaches to the examination of identity. She serves on the editorial board of the Japan Journal of Multilingualism and Multiculturalism and is on the Advisory Council of the International Gender and Language Association.