The Japanese government started to accept semi‐skilled foreign workers officially under the newly established tokutei ginō status in 2019, and national policies for supporting foreign residents are gradually being developed. However, it is unclear how the principles of tabunka kyōsei (multicultural coexistence or co‐living), the official slogan for supporting foreign residents since the mid‐2000s, have changed as a result of recent policy trends. In this article, I examine the transformation of logics for legitimizing policies for foreign residents using discourse analysis of the official government documents on tabunka kyōsei. Previous critical studies have revealed that tabunka kyōsei is based on the logic of a binary opposition between “Japanese” and “foreigners”. This was combined with the neoliberal logic of “supports for self‐reliance”, a paternalism that sees foreigners as being in need of support if they can live "just as" Japanese. This paternalism has prevented the development of recognizing the human rights and cultural differences of foreign residents as de facto immigrants. In addition, a logic has explicitly emerged in the tabunka kyōsei discourse at the end of the 2010s that sees foreigners as a threat to national security and that their acceptance should be strictly governed by the border control policy and socially controlled from the viewpoint of national interests. To deal with this situation, tabunka kyōsei must be recreated as a principle for recognizing foreign residents as immigrants and guaranteeing their human rights and cultural differences.

中文翻译：

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Tabunkakyōsei的家谱：对日本多元文化共居话语改革的批判分析

日本政府于2019年根据新确立的常备人人身份正式开始接受半熟练的外国工人，并且逐步制定了支持外国居民的国家政策。但是，目前尚不清楚自2000年代中期以来支持外国居民的官方口号“ tabunkakyōsei”（多元文化共存或共居）的原则由于最近的政策趋势而发生了变化。在本文中，我通过对Tabunkakyōsei的官方政府文件进行话语分析，研究了使外国居民的政策合法化的逻辑的转变。先前的批判研究表明，tabunkakyōsei基于“日本人”和“外国人”之间二元对立的逻辑。这与“支持自力更生”的新自由主义逻辑相结合，这是一种家长式作风，认为外国人如果能够“像日本人一样生活”，就需要他们的支持。这种家长式的作风阻碍了人们承认外国居民事实上是移民的人权和文化差异的发展。此外，在2010年代末的tabunkakyōsei演讲中明确提出了一种逻辑，该逻辑将外国人视为对国家安全的威胁，并且从国家利益的角度出发，接受外国人应严格执行边境管制政策并受到社会控制。为了应对这种情况，tabunkakyōsei 必须重新确立作为承认外国居民为移民并保障其人权和文化差异的原则。