Triangular circulation : Japanese Brazilians on the move between Japan, Australia and Brazil

This article considers the place of Australia within the network of sites through which Japanese Brazilian migrants move. In doing so, it aims to demonstrate the importance of moving beyond a bi-focal analysis of transnationalism to one which encompasses a multiplicity of sites and migrants’ diverse strategies to cross these national borders. Here I analyse the triangular circulation of young middle-class Japanese Brazilians and the establishment of transnational social fields among Brazil, Japan and Australia. I argue that in order to negotiate these multiple borders, Japanese Brazilians mobilise economic, social and cultural capitals and by doing so undergo changes in subjectivity in all three nodes of this triangular circulation. Moreover, I contend that their middle-class status makes for a very specific migration pattern in which acquiring cultural capital (which will later be converted into economic capital) is more important than migrating in search of economic capital alone