With COVID-19 disrupting travel, shutting borders, and redefining what is essential work, Pandemic Borders explores what international migration will look like after the pandemic, in this series titled #MigrantFutures
2019 was a special year in the history of migration in Japan recording the highest number of both foreign residents in Japan and Japanese residents overseas since 1968. Yet, COVID-19 disrupted this flow as the Japanese government implemented strict pandemic border policies. The pandemic revealed the gap between the lived experience of migrants’ home-making practices and the government’s understanding of their temporariness. How does the meaning of ’home’ in the government’s pandemic border policies help us evaluate the future of labour migration in post-pandemic Japan?
