Traditionally, Burakumin and non-Burakumin have been understood in dichotomous terms, based on blood ties, geographical ties, and cultural practices. This distinction has been thought to play an important role in determining legally defined membership, allocating resources, and shaping social trust. However, when the people who are considered members of historical or “traditional” Buraku are examined concretely and individually, many cases emerge that cannot be fully accounted for by the understanding that group boundaries have been maintained on the basis of lineage. This note examines a series of approximately twenty cases that demonstrate such exception. Through this, the note shifts its focus from whether a person “is” a Burakumin to the configuration in which persons come to “appear as” Burakumin.
These cases include qualitative data collected during the research process, but many also rely on the author’s own memories. As a directly affected Burakumin, I have internalized and embodied, in both my narrative and my body, the norms, perspectives, and boundary practices that have historically been formed and maintained around Buraku. In this note, memory is positioned not as an apparatus for reproducing past “facts” in themselves, but as an analytical object through which the process by which discriminatory structures have been internalized and reproduced can be examined.
Memory is not a subjective experience closed off within an individual. Rather, it is a social product generated and maintained by the community (Halbwachs, 1950). Therefore, in this note, memory is treated as a primary source for examining how membership—namely, Burakumin identity—has been reproduced. In this sense, these memories can be read as further manifestations of social structures.
Also in this note, the term “community” is used as a provisional descriptive concept. This is because, in Buraku, blood ties, place of residence, and symbolic identity do not necessarily coincide; rather, it is precisely these fluctuations and dislocations that constitute the object of analysis. Accordingly, “community” does not refer to a clearly demarcated, concrete group, but is treated as a bracketed concept indicating the historically layered process through which social relations have been formed.
To describe the process by which people move back and forth between Buraku and non-Buraku, and through which ways of living, positionality, and recognition by the community are reorganized, this note proposes the concept of “reciprocal mobility,” an extension of conventional notions of mobility. Reciprocal mobility refers to the multilayered movement of individuals and family lineages as they repeatedly cross, return to, and recross social, spatial, and symbolic boundaries. It focuses on the dynamic reconstruction of identity, membership, and relationships with the community through repeated contact with and withdrawal from boundaries.
In contrast, much previous research has assumed a condition in which belonging to boundaries is maintained in a linear manner and social positions are inherited with near consistency. I conceptualize this condition as “fixity.” Fixity goes beyond the physical aspect of settlement in a particular location; it refers to a state in which membership, symbolic boundaries, and habitus are sedimented into specific social positions and are resistant to change. In other words, settlement is one form of fixity, but it does not represent fixity as a whole. Fixity is not contradictory to mobility. There are certainly Burakumin who move while maintaining their fixity.
By introducing these opposing concepts, it becomes possible to systematically grasp complex boundary practices that have traditionally been treated as “exceptions” or “deviations,” including multigenerational in-migration and repeated re-migration, discrepancies between registered domicile and lived space, fluctuations in positionality, and repeated processes of community recognition. Reciprocal mobility thus provides a conceptual framework for demonstrating that boundaries and communities are not fixed entities but relational and historically ongoing processes.
In capitalist societies, the migration of capital and labor—particularly that of the relative surplus population—is not exceptional but rather inevitable. To discuss this process in dichotomous terms is therefore contradictory. This point is also made in Capital (p. 873). While general mobility is facilitated by social infrastructures such as roads and transportation systems, the incentives for reciprocal mobility are often driven, in addition to these factors, by discrimination itself. For this reason, mobility is not a derivative topic in Buraku studies but an inevitably central analytical concern. Below are examples of fixity and reciprocal mobility.
A. Cases of Fixity among Burakumin
1. The individual belongs to the lineage of traditional senmin and lives in a Buraku, identifying as a Burakumin.
2. The individual belongs to the lineage of traditional senmin and lives in a Buraku, but does not identify as a Burakumin.
Note: In many cases, it is difficult to empirically verify whether an individual belongs to the lineage of traditional senmin.
B. Cases Recognized as Reciprocal Mobility
1 Movement from Non-Buraku to Buraku
1. The individual moves from a non-Buraku to a Buraku and lives as a Burakumin.
2. The individual moves from a non-Buraku to a Buraku and lives as a non-Burakumin.
3. The individual lives in a Buraku with recognition from the Buraku
4. The individual lives in a Buraku without recognition from the Buraku, and lives there as a non-Burakumin.
5. A couple moved to a Buraku after encountering the Buraku Liberation Movement.
They are recognized as Burakumin by people in non-Buraku contexts, while within the Buraku their recognition as either Burakumin or non-Burakumin remains ambiguous. In their place of origin, they are clearly regarded as non-Burakumin. Within the Buraku, however, their practices and modes of participation are Burakumin-like.
6. The individual married a Burakumin and lives in a Buraku.
Although actively involved in the Buraku Liberation Movement, the individual identifies as a non-Burakumin. The children, however, identify as Burakumin.
2 Intergenerational Movement: Parents’ Generation
7. In the parents’ generation, the family moved to a Buraku, and the individual lives as a Burakumin.
8. In the parents’ generation, the family moved to a Buraku; in the next generation, the individual moves reciprocally and lives in a non-Buraku.
3 Intergenerational Movement: Grandparents’ Generation
9. In the grandparents’ generation, the family moved to a Buraku, and the individual lives as a Burakumin.
10. In the grandparents’ generation, the family moved to a Buraku; in the third generation, the individual moves reciprocally and lives in a non-Buraku area.
C. Cases Involving Relationships with Foreign Nationals
1 Migration from Abroad into Buraku
1. The individual moved from a foreign country to a Buraku, acquired Japanese citizenship, and came to live as a Burakumin.
The individual later married a non-Burakumin.
2. The individual moved from a foreign country to a Buraku and continued to live there while retaining foreign citizenship.
2 Migration from Abroad into Buraku: Grandparents’ Generation
3. In the individual’s grandfather’s generation, the family migrated from a foreign country to a Buraku, acquired Japanese citizenship, and came to live as Burakumin.
4. In the individual’s grandfather’s generation, the family migrated from a foreign country to a Buraku, retained foreign citizenship, adopted a Japanese name, and lived within the Buraku.
5. The individual born to a Burakumin parent and a foreign parent lives outside the Buraku.
They have formed a unique identity composed of elements from both Burakumin and foreign identities.
D. Marriage and Intra-national Mobility
1. After marriage, the individual came to live in a Buraku.
2. The individual moved from a non-Buraku area to a Buraku and lives as a Burakumin.
3. The individual moved from a non-Buraku area to a Buraku and lives as a non-Burakumin.
4. Marriage between a Non-Burakumin and a Burakumin. In this case, the non-Burakumin states that the child born from the marriage is a Burakumin, while he himself never identifies as a Burakumin. In other words, within the family, fluctuation and dislocation emerge along the Buraku/non-Buraku boundary, which functions as a liminal zone.
E. Reciprocal Mobility Between Buraku and Non-Buraku
5. The individual moved from a non-Buraku area to a Buraku and lives as a Burakumin within the Buraku, while presenting as a non-Burakumin when interacting with relatives in their place of origin.Blood relatives remain in the non-Buraku area, and relationships with them are maintained on good conditions. The individual identifies themself as a “living archive” of the Buraku in which they currently reside, particularly with regard to the local Buraku Liberation Movement. As a result, their notion of “family” dislocates and fluctuates. This individual exemplifies reciprocal mobility, moving back and forth between Buraku and non-Buraku in a manner comparable to a Möbius loop.
F. From Buraku to Non-Buraku
1. Born to parents who moved from Buraku to non-Buraku, the individual lives as a non-Burakumin.
They maintain reciprocal ties with their ancestral Buraku and live with an identity as Burakumin.
2. After marrying a non-Burakumin, the individual lives in a non-Buraku.
3. After marrying a Burakumin, the individual lives in a non-Buraku.
G. Registered Domicile and Residence
1. Registered domicile in a non-Buraku area, while residence is in a Buraku.
2. Registered domicile (legal address) in a Buraku, while most work and everyday life take place in a non-Buraku area.
3. Repeated changes of registered domicile, accompanied by shifts in residential and labor spaces. Through these movements, identity becomes unstable, wavering and slipping in relation to those characterized by fixity, giving rise to conflict.
4. In order to avoid opposition to marriage, a Burakumin man was transferred to a non-Burakumin family register (legally, through adoption). No other members of his family were transferred. Among his relatives, evaluations are divided as to whether this act should be regarded as humiliating.
The concept of “reciprocal mobility” employed in this note does not presuppose binary oppositions such as mobility and fixity, inside and outside, or insider and outsider. Rather, it reconceptualizes these distinctions as movements through which such divisions are continually deferred and sustained only by incorporating slippages and displacements.This perspective resonates with Jacques Derrida’s notions of différance and the supplement, providing a theoretical foundation for understanding boundaries and communities not as fixed entities, but as relational configurations that come into being only through an exteriority that simultaneously supports and destabilizes the self.
Reciprocal mobility refers to a multilayered and reversible process in which individuals, family lineages, or groups repeatedly cross, return to, and recross social, spatial, and symbolic boundaries. Whereas conventional concepts of mobility presuppose linear transitions—from one location to another, or from one social position to another—reciprocal mobility focuses on the ways in which belonging, membership, identity, and social categorization are reorganized, both periodically and aperiodically, through repeated movement across boundaries.
Here, “reciprocal mobility” does not refer solely to physical movement. It also encompasses processes of symbolic and relational repositioning, including shifts in recognition by the community, the reconfiguration of boundary practices, and context-dependent fluctuations in social status. Reciprocal mobility thus captures movements that unfold simultaneously across spatial, social, and symbolic dimensions.
This concept demonstrates that boundaries do not function as fixed mechanisms that rigidly classify individuals. Rather, boundaries themselves are reproduced and rendered unstable through processes in which individuals and lineages come into contact with boundaries, pass through them, withdraw from them, and subsequently re-engage with them. By incorporating intergenerational residential mobility, discrepancies between registered domicile and lived space, fluctuations and divisions in subjectivity, and repeated moments of recognition and non-recognition by the community, reciprocal mobility illustrates how belonging and exclusion are constructed in a circular and negotiated manner.
In this sense, reciprocal mobility provides a conceptual framework for analyzing the very “dislocations,” “fluctuations,” and “contradictions” that shape everyday life in complex social domains, including those involving historically stigmatized groups.
As demonstrated by the cases presented above, a wide variety of combinations can be observed: moving subjects from non-Buraku who live in Buraku; cases in which nationality, registered domicile, place of residence, and marital relations intersect; cases in which one parent is Burakumin while the other is not; cases in which Burakumin maintain their livelihood outside Buraku; and cases in which one parent is a foreign national. In all of these situations, self-identification and recognition by others function as key variables.
These cases clearly illustrate the difficulty of defining both the concept of Burakumin and membership in Buraku according to a single, unified standard.
| Case | Origin / Background | Current Location | Self-identification | Community Recognition | Form of Mobility | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Born to parents who moved from Buraku to non-Buraku | Non-Buraku | Burakumin | Not recognized | Reciprocal mobility | Maintains reciprocal ties with ancestral Buraku |
| B2 | Burakumin by lineage | Non-Buraku | Non-Burakumin | Not applicable | Spatial mobility | Lives in non-Buraku after marriage to non-Burakumin |
| B3 | Burakumin by lineage | Non-Buraku | Ambivalent | Context-dependent | Reciprocal mobility | Married to a Burakumin |
| B4 | Non-Buraku origin | Buraku | Burakumin | Recognized | Reciprocal mobility | Recognition obtained after relocation |
| B5 | Non-Buraku origin | Buraku | Non-Burakumin | Not recognized | Reciprocal mobility | Lives in Buraku without community recognition |
| B6 | Non-Buraku origin | Buraku | Burakumin | Recognized | Reciprocal mobility | Lives in Buraku with community recognition. In origin, with recognition as non-Burakumin |
| B7 | Non-Buraku origin; encounter with Buraku Liberation Movement | Buraku | Ambivalent | Ambiguous | Reciprocal mobility | Recognized as Burakumin outside Buraku; Burakumin-like practices within Buraku |
From this table, it is clear that people cannot be classified simply by “place of residence,” that is, equating “living in a Buraku” with being “Burakumin.” Instead, approval from the Buraku is used as the independent variable.
| Case | Origin / Background | Legal Status (Nationality / Domicile) | Movement Trajectory | Self-Identification | Community Recognition | Form of Mobility | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Individual born abroad | Acquired Japanese nationality | Moved from abroad → Buraku | Identifies as Burakumin | Recognized as Burakumin | Reciprocal mobility | Married to non-Burakumin |
| F2 | Individual born abroad | Foreign nationality | Moved from abroad → Buraku | Does not identify as Burakumin | Partially recognized | Reciprocal mobility | Lives continuously in Buraku |
| F3 | Grandparent generation migrated from abroad | Acquired Japanese nationality | Abroad → Buraku (grandparent generation) | Identifies as Burakumin | Recognized | Fixity / weak reciprocity | Multigenerational settlement |
| F4 | Grandparent generation migrated from abroad | Foreign nationality, Japanese name used | Abroad → Buraku (grandparent generation) | Ambiguous | Ambiguous | Reciprocal mobility | Symbolic assimilation without legal change |
| F5 | Child of Burakumin and foreign national | Japanese nationality | Buraku → non-Buraku | Hybrid identity | Recognized as Burakumin | Reciprocal mobility | Identity composed of multiple affiliations |
| F6 | Married to Burakumin | Japanese nationality | Non-Buraku → Buraku (after marriage) | Identifies as non-Burakumin | Recognized as Burakumin | Reciprocal mobility | Active in Buraku Liberation Movement |
| F7 | Married to Burakumin | Japanese nationality | Non-Buraku → Buraku | Identifies as non-Burakumin | Recognition ambiguous | Reciprocal |
Important Points of This Table
Nationality, lineage, and recognition do not coincide. Even when individuals acquire Japanese citizenship, a sense of “externality” often remains. Conversely, even those with foreign nationality may develop identities shaped by sustained life within a Buraku community. “Foreign origin” is not a fixed attribute. Across generations, it may approach a form of fixity; however, in most cases it remains characterized by reciprocal mobility. Discrimination becomes compounded through intersectionality, specifically the intersection of discrimination against foreigners and Buraku discrimination. While one or the other form of discrimination may come to the foreground, this occurs in a context-dependent manner. Recognition is spatially contingent: evaluations frequently reverse depending on whether one is inside or outside the Buraku. The category “foreign” does not refer exclusively to people of Korean origin; rather, it encompasses migrants from a broad range of Asian regions.
Broadly speaking, three modes of lived experience emerge among these individuals:
1.Those who identify as Burakumin and live with recognition from the community
2.Those who do not identify as Burakumin but nonetheless live with recognition from the community
3.Those who identify as Burakumin but live without recognition from the community
Each of these groups lives under different social and historical conditions.
One illustrative background factor is the presence of individuals who move into Buraku and actively contribute to the Buraku Liberation Movement. Among such residents, some identify as Burakumin and are recognized as such by the community. Others, however, are denounced as sabetsusha (discriminators) by “genuine” Burakumin, despite not engaging in discriminatory practices. This reveals how recognition and exclusion operate independently of intention or conduct, and are instead mediated through historically sedimented boundary practices.
The phenomena described above do not indicate that the boundary distinguishing Burakumin from non-Burakumin is rapidly disappearing in the present. The observed “fluctuations” and “dislocations” do not arise primarily from migration, marriage, assimilation, or transformations of identity. Rather, they derive from the genetic and historical characteristics of Buraku themselves.
Buraku emerged diffréntly from dominant society and have existed in a condition of persistent dislocation. As a result, the boundary itself has always been constituted through continuous dislocation. It is therefore necessary to recognize that instability is not an anomaly but a constitutive feature of the boundary. (This point will be elaborated further below.)
Under such conditions, a fundamental question arises: who has drawn and maintained the distinction between non-Buraku and Buraku? This is ultimately a question of difference—specifically, of how difference has been determined, by whom, and through what mechanisms.
These phenomena of fluctuation and dislocation in Burakumin identity demonstrate that even if community boundaries are treated as real, they are not fixed entities. Rather, they are socially constructed and variable concepts. Boundaries are institutionally and discursively reproduced, yet in the everyday practices of living subjects they are continuously negotiated, interfered with, and unsettled, producing ongoing dislocations. Accordingly, the distinction between “non-Buraku” and “Buraku”—that is, the dichotomous mode of recognition—functions less as an empirical description of social reality than as a narrative device for maintaining a symbolic order.
The non-Buraku/Buraku division as a form of community has become increasingly fluid, with the result that traditional categories are losing their substantive stability. The boundary/ is no longer a fixed line; rather, it should be understood as a fluid relational field, continuously reconstructed in and through individuals’ life histories, relationships, and choices. In this sense, the logic whereby the exception is normalized—and indeed becomes constitutive of the norm—defines the contemporary Buraku community. What is at stake, then, is a paradoxical understanding of the “normalized exception.”
1. Exceptions Render the Contours of the Norm Visible
Ordinarily, exceptions are defined in relation to a norm or rule. However, when exceptions occur with sufficient frequency, it becomes apparent that the “norm” itself no longer adequately describes social reality. Observing exceptions thus makes it possible to illuminate, in reverse, the constructive mechanisms through which institutions and discourses seek to frame and organize the world. In this sense, the exception functions as an apparatus that brings the limits of institutional order into relief.
2. What Is the “Normalization of the Exception”?
The normalization of the exception refers to a condition in which events regarded as exceptional come to predominate, thereby coming to represent the standard state of affairs in empirical reality. Under such conditions, the original norm retains only a symbolic or idealized significance.
For example, even if the ideal of “pure internal (community) membership”—which may be understood as an ideal type—is formally maintained, in practice no individual fully conforms to this ideal. Over time, the notion of a “pure interior” comes to exist only at the level of abstraction. The exception, therefore, no longer occupies a merely peripheral position; instead, it is inverted into a key analytical concept for understanding the whole. Analyzing the normalization of the exception thus becomes an effective method for grasping the structural principles underlying communities and societies.
3. Theoretical Relevance: Agamben and Social Constructivism
3.1 The Philosophical Significance of the State of Exception
In State of Exception, Giorgio Agamben writes:
“The state of exception is neither outside nor inside the legal order; its definition concerns a threshold. In other words, it concerns an undifferentiated zone in which the inside and the outside do not exclude each other but are unable to determine each other” (Agamben 2003, 50).
This formulation reveals a central paradox: the exception is not simply a deviation from, or exclusion by, the legal order, but rather a condition that makes the very production of order possible. The state of exception emerges as a liminal zone that necessarily arises when legal and political orders attempt to distinguish between their inside and outside, thereby exposing the conditions of their own existence. Accordingly, the exception should not be understood as external to order, but rather as an “interior exteriority” that traverses it from within.
Understood in this way, the state of exception does not merely denote emergency or abnormality; instead, it points to the normal structural condition of social order itself. The normalization of the exception thus signifies a situation in which the distinction between inside and outside becomes fluid, and society incorporates the indeterminacy of this boundary as a constitutive principle of its own organization.
3.2 Articulation with a Social Constructivist Perspective
From a social constructivist standpoint, Agamben’s notion of the threshold can be interpreted as a cognitive apparatus operative in the process through which society constructs itself as “normal” or “universal.” Society defines the contours of its order by positing certain phenomena or groups as exceptions. The exception, therefore, is not something external produced as a mere outcome of exclusion, but rather a conditional element indispensable to the construction of social order itself.
In this respect, Agamben’s liminal thinking resonates strongly with the social constructivist framework of The Social Construction of Reality (Berger & Luckmann 1966). The exception does not lie outside social order; rather, it operates reflexively within it, enabling order to take shape. The normalization of the exception thus describes a condition in which society continuously activates its own constructive presuppositions—namely, the boundary operations that differentiate the normal from the abnormal.
Re-read from this social constructivist perspective, Agamben’s theory renders visible the dialectic of outside/inside (Buraku/non-Buraku) that underpins the constitution of social order. The exception is not an object to be excluded but emerges instead as the inverted foundation of order itself. Here, a fundamental paradox becomes apparent: society can exist only by incorporating its outside into its “inside.”
4. Reconsidering Binary Epistemology From the perspective of this liminal structure, the relationship between Buraku and non-Buraku cannot be adequately grasped as a simple binary opposition. The difference between the two does not constitute an essential ontological distinction; rather, it is a relational difference conferred through social discourse and constructive practices. Even if this relationship is described as a “binary opposition,” what actually exists is not a substantive difference but the structural fact that an opposition is posited as such.
In other words, the “boundary” perceived between the two is nothing more than a constructive effect continuously reproduced through social institutions, discursive formations, and operations of power. At the level of the lived lifeworld, there is no substantive marker that unequivocally indicates a fixed difference. The binary framework itself must therefore be reinterpreted as a discursive structure that reflects the cognitive operations through which society organizes and recognizes itself.
5. The Liminality of Being and Identity
From this standpoint, neither being nor identity can be understood as fixed or determinate; both exhibit a liminal and fluid structure. The “poles” posited as ideal types do not correspond to empirical entities but function instead as cognitive effects produced in the process of social construction. Individual lives, understood as exceptional, are formed through movements back and forth between inside and outside, center and periphery, unfolding along a spectral continuum rather than occupying discrete positions.
As the cases discussed earlier illustrate, this structure may be conceptualized as a continuous surface without front or back, akin to a Möbius strip. In this sense, the existence of Burakumin is simultaneously “outside” dominant society and “inside” it as a constitutive condition of its formation. Their existence embodies the liminal space that necessarily emerges when society constructs its own order, thereby indicating the immanent limits of social order itself.
What becomes evident through a social constructivist reinterpretation of Agamben’s concept of the state of exception is a structural paradox: social order is constituted precisely by internalizing what appears as its outside. The exception is not merely an object of exclusion; it functions as a condition of order itself—a liminal phenomenon that illuminates the generative process of social reality.
Viewed within this framework, the Buraku issue reveals not a rigid opposition between “outside” and “inside,” or between “exception” and “norm,” but a continuous space in which these distinctions are destabilized. This space operates as a site of reflexivity within social structure itself. Such an understanding provides a theoretical foundation for approaching social difference and identity not through a fixed ontology, but as generative and relational processes of construction.
1. What Are Burakumin?
Biologically speaking, Homo sapiens constitutes a single species.
Nevertheless, human societies have persistently constructed the social world through a multiplicity of poles and oppositional pairs.
Such dichotomies are not generated by biological differences among humans, but by relational configurations established between them.
This perspective is essential for understanding the distinction between Burakumin and Non-Burakumin, a distinction that cannot be explained by ancestry, phenotype, or genetic difference, but only by historically and socially produced relations.
The universe itself does not inherently possess directions such as north and south, east and west, or up and down. The configuration according to which “north is up and south is down” on a globe is not a natural order, but merely a convention that has been historically formed within human orders of knowledge and practice. A compass does indeed indicate a consistent direction; however, the naming of that direction as “north,” and its further institutionalization as an up–down orientation on maps, has been shaped by a complex constellation of historical and social relations—such as the position of the North Star, the development of navigational techniques, geographical discoveries, and academic conventions. If the point of cognition were fixed exclusively at one pole, the world would be apprehended only as that pole and a single opposing direction, thereby rendering invisible the intermediate positions and differences that should otherwise be perceptible. In accordance with this metaphor, to observe Burakumin is not to grasp them as an isolated entity in itself, but rather to apprehend them within a relational configuration constituted together with whatever functions as their opposing pole. In this sense, Burakumin do not exist as self-sufficient entities; they emerge as a visible position only through specific social arrangements and relations.
In modernity, the construction of Burakumin and their opposing pole must be understood as a product of the formation of the modern nation-state. The schema in which the emperor occupies one pole and Burakumin the other functioned as a structural apparatus through which the modern state simultaneously pursued integration and differentiation—differentiation for the sake of integration.
This order was set in motion through what may be called a “force of law”: the Meiji-era Emancipation Edict, a legal text consisting of only a few dozen characters. This juridical “liberation” simultaneously produced new distinctions and new names—Buraku and Burakumin. In other words, the category of “Burakumin” was institutionally constituted within the body politic through the violent operation of law. As suggested in the earlier discussion of circulation and movement, Burakumin who appear to move reciprocally across social spaces are, in fact, supplied violently and différantly from within the category of the general population.
2. Why Are “Non-Burakumin” Called “Non-Burakumin”?
“Non-Burakumin” appears as the “general” category only because the category of Burakumin exists. The two are mutually dependent and cannot be constituted independently. These terms do not refer to isolated substances; rather, they function as differential forces within relations of power—within a differentiated field of power/violence. Ironically, when non-Burakumin direct hatred toward Burakumin, they become entangled in an aporetic dilemma: in attempting to negate the other whose differential existence secures their own positionality, they simultaneously reinscribe and destabilize the very condition of their self-presence. What is thus exposed is not merely hostility toward the other, but the performative disclosure of their own ontological crisis.
This “force as a deference” manifests only within relational fields inherent to social structures. Both “non-Burakumin” and “Burakumin” are generated through the operation of power as difference, that is, through configurations of power within discourse. Discourse is never neutral: it is always already power-laden and carries violence within itself. The “force” referred to here does not signify mere physical coercion; it designates the violent moment that makes institutions possible—the oscillation between law and violence, the site of their impossible articulation.
The concept of “non-Burakumin” thus emerges within the field of governing discourse, and its existence always depends on the distribution of differences within a field of force, that is, within a structure of potential violence. Discourse itself operates as a modality of power that simultaneously enables inclusion and exclusion. “Force,” in this sense, is nothing other than violence in potential (potentia): a form of the state of exception that lies at the constitutive core of power.
Tracing the etymological and philosophical lineage of the word force renders this implication even clearer. Derived from the Latin fortis (strong) and fortia (strength, courage), the term has historically signified not only muscular power but also the capacity to endure and the authority to dominate. In Middle French, force already denoted power, momentum, military might, and violence, carrying legal and political ambiguity. In English expressions such as force of law or coercive force, the term continues to imply an ambiguous intersection between domination and execution, law and violence. The historical sedimentation of this term demonstrates that language itself harbors a potential violence within discourse—namely, the state of exception operative in the formation of legal order.
3. The Structure of Burakumin Existence from a Marxian Perspective
Just as Karl Marx identified labor as the immanent essence of wealth, an inquiry into what renders Burakumin “Burakumin” requires the systematic abstraction of surrounding conditions. Yet no intrinsic essence remains once this process is carried through. The lifestyles, cultures, languages, ethics, occupations, religions, national identities, social conventions, academic discourses, symbols, and ideologies attributed to Burakumin do not arise autonomously from within the community itself.
What remains after this stripping away is solely a relational structure of existence—one in which Burakumin are positioned binarily in relation to others. Burakumin, in this sense, are imagined through relations that may rightly be called violent. Interpretations that seek to explain the “inferiority” of Burakumin function as a second-order violence. If the first violence lies in legal naming—the institutional designation of Burakumin—then the second violence consists in interpretive acts that define what they are supposed to be.
Within this structure, even concern for oppression risks reproducing oppression anew. Discursive attention to Burakumin becomes caught in a self-reinforcing trap: while aiming to overcome discrimination, it simultaneously functions as an apparatus that reaffirms the very structure of discrimination it seeks to dismantle.
Representations of Burakumin have remained extremely limited. Buraku F, for example had a population of approximately 9,000 at its peak and maintained a population of around 6,000 even after World War II. However, less than one-hundredth of this population has been made visible through administrative and academic surveys. The "remaining" Burakumin have only been allowed to exist as a statistical "population." This condition resonates with what Gayatri Spivak conceptualizes as the “subaltern.” This could also be described as Gayatri Spivak’s definition of "subaltern (like)." Even if they are able (or allowed) to speak, could the visible 1% truly represent Burakumin as a whole? What power dynamics underpin the very process by which representation is established? Herein lies the fundamental pitfall of Burakumin recognition. Surveys and research are often acts of transcribing the researcher’s unconscious text. The narrator’s narrative is translated into the researcher’s linguistic system and reconstructed as a "transcription." This "transcription" is a text that does not actually exist anywhere, an operation that retroactively constructs a never-present past as a vestigial effect.
In this sense, the narratives of the subaltern (like) are also translated by researchers and journalists and incorporated into the discursive network of the state’s power apparatus. There, "Burakumin narratives" are always merely made present as a "past" discovered vicariously by others. Therefore, while Buraku certainly "exist," previous interpretations have only analyzed their existence by recapitulating it to one extreme. While existence is relational, interpretation has always been fixed. Herein lies the intellectual violence that enables the reproduction of discriminatory structures.
2.1. The Appearance and Disappearance of Modern Japanese Ideals
As an ideal type, modern Japan aspired to the universal values of "freedom, equality, and human rights." However, in the process of forming a modern nation, Japan lacked the social maturity and institutional foundations to universally apply these ideals. To fill this "deficiency," Western ideas of progress, social Darwinism, and eugenics were introduced.
While upholding the ideals of equality, the contradiction arose: simultaneously reproducing the discriminatory structures that prevented its realization.
2.2 Nation as Text / Burakumin as Annotation
Modern Japanese texts center on the ideal subject of "the nation." This "nation" is "written" into existence through education, law, cultural policies, and other means, while referencing the modern Western image of humanity. However, this image of the nation as the "text" is never self-sufficient. This is because the nation could not define itself without reference to others outside the framework of the nation, such as Burakumin, colonial others (Ryukyu, Ainu, Koreans, among others), women and people with disabilities. In other words, the text of the nation has a supplemental structure that defines itself through the exclusion of the outside.
Recalling Derrida’s Grammatology, written language (écriture) is both a complement to spoken language (parole), and a necessary condition for its existence. Similarly, Burakumin, colonized people, and women are constructed as "outsides" to establish the central core of the nation, but in reality, they are indispensable supplements supporting that core. For example, the "modern male Japanese citizen" is defined in contrast to "non-modern, feeble women" and the "barbaric Other." "Civilized Japan" is established through differentiation from "uncivilized Asia." The pure Japanese imperial line and the people who bear it cannot exist without constructing the particularly impure Burakumin. These outsides are supposed to be excluded, but at the moment of exclusion, they become unavoidably necessary insides for the establishment of central meaning. In other words, modern Japan is written as text through its own supplements.
2.3 Structural Position of Burakumin
Modern Japan has persistently oriented itself toward the achievement of “Western modernity,” and depicted progress based on the premise that "the self is not yet fully modern." Japanese modernity cannot be self-contained and is always defined in relation to "an other to be caught up with." Modern Japan is a text constructed in a différance from the "West," and within this différance, meanings such as "nation," "civilization," and "freedom" continue to emerge. Therein lies an aporia that cannot be resolved by either "Japanese tradition" or "Westernization." As a symptomatic illustration, Ushimatsu Segawa—the young teacher of Buraku origin in Shimazaki Tōson’s Hakai—figures as a subject positioned within this aporia. Though juridically a citizen, he remains structurally unable to attain the status of a “pure” citizen. Ushimatsu thus does not merely represent a marginalized individual; rather, he renders legible the constitutive contradiction through which the modern Japanese state produces citizenship while simultaneously foreclosing its full realization.
As the most typical example of this contradiction, the "outside" of "modern national society" emerged as the "pole" of uncivilization. Burakumin were constructed as a différant "outside," so to speak, as entities that support the "inside" while being excluded from it. In other words, Burakumin were excluded in order to enable the establishment of modern society. The paradox of Burakumin being excluded as the "pole" of uncivilization gives shape to the idea that all people become "equal citizens." In this context, Burakumin and the colonial Other simultaneously function as "outsiders" and as apparatus that internalize différance. In other words, Burakumin are constantly demonstrating the "incompleteness of modernity." Here, we can already see a "complementary" relationship between Burakumin and the nation’s citizens. This relationship is a "suspended" structure, where Burakumin belong to the internal but are also external. In other words, the ideal of "equal citizens" is only made visible and established through the existence of those who are not equal. In other words, Burakumin are an Other that had to be denied in order to support the "equality" of modern Japan, and in that sense, they are a complement to the text known as modern Japan. In reality, the nation itself, which creates difference, is not unitary but pluralistic. Therefore, the construction of difference is easy, and Burakumin emerged as a form of différance.
Here, I will be cautious about saying that Burakumin were constructed through the differentiation of the people, and briefly touch on the meaning of the concept of différance introduced by Derrida. Differentiation presupposes the existence of discrete, self-identical units that give rise to differences, and that these realities are segmented. However, in reality, the people that gives rise to differences is itself not unitary but pluralistic. This is what it means to say that Burakumin emerge as différance from a plural and non-unitary people. The ideal of an "equal people" is only made visible and determined by the existence of those who are "unequal." In other words, Burakumin are an Other that had to be denied in order to support the "equality" of modern Japan, and in that sense, they are a supplement for the text known as modern Japan.
Memories of discrimination against Burakumin have been produced through repeated acts of narration that are recognized as legitimate “accounts.” Many of these have been extensively consumed as “transcriptions” produced by researchers and educators.
Many of the Burakumin listed at the beginning of this note as “exceptions” have had little opportunity to speak for themselves. It gradually becomes clear that the “transcription of narratives” of Burakumin who do not—or cannot—speak differs fundamentally from the “transcriptions” of those who do. This is the case, for example, when Burakumin exist in a subaltern-like position, or as Homo sacer. It is also the case of performers who embellish themselves through eloquent self-presentation. Once such narratives are translated and “transcribed,” a past that had never been present is instantaneously rendered as having been present.
Burakumin are constituted through a process of ontological displacement, structured by différance, in which positions of belonging and inclusion are deferred, differentiated, and reconfigured, thus:
(1) a position of belonging to and being included within the state and society;
(2) a position of belonging without inclusion; and
(3) a position of neither belonging nor inclusion.
This process is marked by différance insofar as difference is formed and recognized only belatedly. At the same time, it entails an ontological passage—reciprocal mobility rather than a linear transition. These differences are conditioned by the objective configurations of particular regions. The modernization of rural areas, mountain villages, fishing villages, intermediate mountainous regions, cities, metropolises, military cities, commercial cities, and industrial cities—as well as the manifestation of their internal contradictions—has profoundly shaped the modes of belonging and inclusion of Burakumin.
The passage from (1) to (2) and (3) is triggered by a force of law. That nameless, brief legal provision mentioned above carries infinite potential power. It has never been accompanied by physical forms of power such as punishment or detention; rather, it operates persistently as a latent force. Yet from the very moment of its enactment, it came to define Burakumin, and simultaneously to define their polar opposite—the majority, that is, future non-Burakumin.
However, the transition from (1) to (2) and (3) dose not occur as a clear binary opposition. Rather, it takes the form of reciprocal mobility. In local contexts, Burakumin (a) may belong to a local community (b) without being included within it; this condition can be expressed as a ∈ b. Yet (2) and (3) are not necessarily opposed. The tendency to belong without being included is particularly evident in small, scattered Buraku communities. By contrast, in large urban Buraku, this pattern does not always apply. As the Buraku population grows and attains economic self-sufficiency, communities may become capable of autonomously producing and providing necessary goods and services. Once autonomy is established, inclusion becomes unnecessary and the meaning of belonging itself is diluted. As a result, a suspended form of Buraku emerges.
When we observe cases of belonging without being included, this exceptional condition appears to fulfill certain functions for the surrounding community. This raises the question: in communities where Burakumin neither belong nor are included, do they still perform a function in sustaining the community? The answer is that they do.
This must be examined through the relationship between the state of nature and the legal state. As settlements form and develop, people engaged in diverse occupations increase as a form of social nature, giving rise to a small society. Internal demands can be met autonomously through occupations such as greengrocery, butchery, clothing, carpentry, and plastering. In such cases, even if individuals belong to a dominant society, their degree of subordination decreases and they become included. Nevertheless, situations arise in which one belongs without being included. This occurs because “something” is named within linguistic activity and subordinated through it, expressing a bundle of inclusive exclusion.
6.1 Can Burakumin Be Understood through Identity?
The concept of “Burakumin identity” is frequently invoked. Belonging to a Buraku and being included within it are said to function as foundations of Burakumin identity, providing incentives for participation in the Buraku Liberation Movement and fostering a sense of self-affirmation. This appealing formulation appears to constitute a kind of ontological argument. In discussions of human existence, identity has long been considered indispensable for self-understanding.
But is this tendency truly appropriate? Does it not reduce the question of Burakumin existence to “Burakumin identity”? From another perspective, even among “Burakumin,” each individual is a bundle of multiple identities. In that sense, “being Burakumin” cannot be adequately understood by subsuming it under a singular “Burakumin identity.” Such an identity exists only as one element within a multiplicity. Even if all individual Burakumin identities were gathered or bundled together, the whole would still not be intelligible. This would amount to ontological violence. Why? Because “being Burakumin” is a condition imposed by force.
6.2 “We” and Reciprocal Mobility
When diverse and pluralistic Burakumin speak as “we,” the multiple positions, conflicts, contradictions, and dissonances within that collectivity become difficult to articulate. The term “we” simultaneously produces solidarity and exclusion, raising the question of how to understand and narrate the tensions embedded within it. Frantz Fanon already addressed this issue. The narrative of “we” often appears as a revolutionary subject. When the oppressed of colonialism speak as “we,” they no longer speak of individual pain but of collective anger against structural violence. This does not mean “those who share the same experience,” but rather “those who have been similarly denied, each suffering and responding in different ways.”
Even if one were to assume a fixed origin theory—such as biological “descent”—as a basis for recognizing Burakumin, the identities of both Burakumin and the general public remain perpetually displaced through différance. Their relationship never stabilizes. It is crucial to note that the general public is itself not a unitary entity, but always exists in pluralistic conditions of “descent.” Consequently, the opposition between Burakumin and the nation cannot be understood as a fixed binary. Rather, both share a common origin while undergoing continuous differentiation and displacement. The characterization of Buraku as a “spectral existence” signifies, in Derridean terms, that identity is endlessly deferred and repeatedly manifests in diverse forms. From this perspective, the contradiction of “conflict despite shared lineage” is not paradoxical but rather an expression of reciprocal mobility produced by différance itself—an entirely expected conclusion within Derrida’s framework.