Japanese migrants in London: a ’transient community’

Abstrakti

Changes in the organisation of the global economy have created a series of new flows and transformed the nature of others. Manufactured products that were never previously traded internationally are now available uniformly across large parts of the globe – the international distribution of several premier makes of beer is an obvious example. International financial transfers have multiplied in importance, with the rise of multinational and transnational ownership of enterprises creating complex systems of investment and transactional networks across international borders. The internet and modern systems of telecommunications have played a role in enhancing flows of knowledge and information.

This article discusses one further aspect of these evolving global flows – that of the movement of new groups of people whose activities are related to the globalisation of economic systems. To some extent these new flows of migrants have been neglected. Instead attention has been focused on the sources and destinations of foreign direct investment (FDI), on issues concerned with the impact of such flows on regional and national economies, and on the complex structures of multinational enterprises. However, these processes associated with globalisation need people for their successful operation, and many of these people need to be migratory in order to play their role.

Economies and nations of different types around the world are affected by these trends in somewhat different ways. In more economically peripheral areas of the world the new migratory flows are more limited in extent than in the core regions. Capital cities and other major centres based on growth sectors experience more migratory impact than do rural regions and areas of industrial decline. This article concentrates on migratory outcomes in one major global city – London. Nevertheless certain aspects of change taking place there are also present in other national capitals throughout Europe, and to some extent in many smaller cities as well.