Should I Stay or Should I Go?

This critical ethnographic paper focuses on the lived experiences of English-speaking Japanese women to describe their reasons for staying in or leaving Japan. I approached 19 women to learn how their personal experiences shape new knowledge about a marginalised group of Japanese women: those who speak English. The data was analysed from three frameworks: (1) the Japanese economic/business situation, (2) society and culture, and (3) family and romance. The findings showed that these women’s desires to stay in or leave Japan are not as simple as previous studies have suggested, foregrounding the desire in the discourses of internationalisation; it is more complex and not necessarily binary. Furthermore, the English language was highlighted as crucial in the process for its relevance in the acts of physical movement and personal transformations.