Narratives of Japanese nuclear immigrants in New Zealand: Shinsai experiences, identity, and investment

Abstract

This study focuses on Japanese adults who have immigrated to New Zealand in response to the events following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, to whom I refer as nuclear immigrants. It explores their second language (L2) experiences of New Zealand communities, particularly how their ongoing identity construction and concomitant investment in learning and using English as L2 are negotiated in inequitable relations of power. In this process, their past shinsai experiences [harm suffered as a result of the disaster] become an important consideration, as I view identities as multiple and fluid and historically constructed beyond the present context that also leads to investment in imagined futures. A biographical case study as a type of narrative inquiry methodology is employed. Eight participants were recruited, and the data were collected via biographical narrative interviews. The analytical steps began with thematic narrative analysis, and from this, the themes identified were synthesised into narrative descriptions. The stories of the participants were then configured and discussed in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning making of the participants’ experiences. Further, the stories were investigated in relation to dimensions of social activity represented by micro, meso, and macro levels. Details from a wider contextual and intersectional perspective informed the interpretation of the narratives of each participant. The findings reveal that L2 experiences are composed of a complex array of phenomena across time and space. When the nuclear immigrants faced contextual and sociocultural constraints and marginalisation, they agentively decided whether to further invest in or divest from the L2 practices. Based on their intentional choice and desire, they creatively exercised socially mediated agency that worked at multiple levels, from micro to macro and vice versa. A place of transnational emancipation was carved out embedded in both online and offline contexts, where they were able to disengage from the unidirectional and expected process of integration. They are agentive social actors who behaved strategically, guided by their identity as nuclear immigrants, and therefore went on to create alternative stories as L2 users.