Focus on role of migration to promote BD-Japan ties

Speakers at a discussion, on Monday, stressed the economic and cultural dividends of migration, pointing to the experience of Bangladeshis who have lived and worked in Japan.

Migrants who have returned, have brought back not only money, but also habits, skills and networks that can enrich their homeland, they added.

The event was organised as a part of a research project on "Global Migration and Transnational Networks", led by Professor Tetsuo Mizukami of the Rikkyo University in Tokyo, and supported by the Asian People's Friendship Society.

Their team has surveyed and interviewed Bangladeshis, who moved to Japan from the late 1980s onwards, and many of them spent years in the Japanese society before returning home.

Their stories, Professor Mizukami noted, are more than anecdotes: these are data. The returnees' careers and civic roles offer insights into how migration shapes lives, economies and cultures. Some Bangladeshis settled permanently in Japan, while others came back. In both cases, the ties forged across borders have proved resilient.

Masud Karim, a coordinator of the project, urged more attention to the daily lives of foreigners in Japan, whose struggles often go unnoticed in the country's technocratic debates about shrinking workforces and ageing demographics. Migration should be seen less as a stopgap for labour shortages and more as a process of social exchange, he suggested.

Professor A. K. M. Moazzem Hussain, a government scholar in Japan in the 1960s, recalled institutions that still underpin bilateral ties, from the Japan-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce to cultural outfits such as the Bangladesh Ikebana Association.

Japan's public discourse remains narrowly focused on economic utility. Yet the web of friendships, business links and community ties spun by migrants is harder to measure, and perhaps more durable, noted the speakers.

The researchers hoped that documenting these relationships would deepen understanding - not just of Bangladeshi-Japanese interaction, but of migration's broader role in knitting societies together.

mirmostafiz@yahoo.com