In an increase in interethnic interactions inside and outside the country, Japanese duality of attitude vis-à-vis the East and the West has been problematised. There seems to be a difference in the level of the expressed ethnic distance, resulting in Asians perceiving Japanese attitude towards them as discriminatory and in sharp contrast to the favourism they accord to westerners; though little has been revealed about Japanese explicit ethnic distance. This book examines acculturation patterns of overseas Japanese communities as an embodiment of ethnic distance in order to provide a new understanding of Japanese interethnic behaviour. Instead of using traditional research methods, a different approach (using the content of the ethnic community newspapers as a distant measurement) is employed. The analysis should help describe the structure of Japanese ethnic distance in a global context, and should serve as the foundation for further research of the problem of Japanese interethnic competence.

Lecturer in International Communication at Saitama University, Japan. She studied International Communication specialising in Media and Ethnic Relations at Macquarie University, Australia, and was awarded PhD in 2004. After working in TV and educational think-tanks as a researcher, she joined SU in 2007.