Japan, Australia and a Somatic Reading of Globalisation

Sue Brook's award-winning film, Japanese Story (2003), concerns a relationship between two people who could be said to reflect the conditions of the new 'transnational' class under conditions of globalisation (Sklair 2001). The main characters are highly-skilled professionals who move around the Asia-Pacific region with ease, wealthy enough to afford air travel and hired cars. Their easy mobility could be contrasted with less privileged labour migrants, whose movements are strictly monitored and regulated and regulated. In this chapter, I would like to focus on this film in order to explore a specific aspect of globalisation. I read this film as illustrating, among other things, the ways in which the processes of globalisation are experienced through the body.