Constructing the authentic modern: Japanese migrant artists in New York City
Olga Kanzaki SOOUDI
ABASTRACT This article explores the concept of authenticity, and its articulation with longstanding Japanese discourses of modernity, among contemporary Japanese lifestyle migrants in New York City. Considering the cases of artists in particular, it examines how migrants narrate the ideals and goals of life in New York City, thereby elaborating on concepts of the self, authenticity, meaning, and national cultural identity.
KEYWORDS: Authenticity, Japan, artistic production, migration
Author’s biography
Olga Kanzaki Sooudi received her PhD in Anthropology from Yale University in 2008. Her dissertation focused on Japanese lifestyle migrants to New York City and processes of self-making, within the context of Japanese modernity and histories of transnational circulation. She teaches in Anthropology and Asian Studies at the University of Amsterdam.