Stereotypes and perceived solidarity in ethnic enclave tourism

This study considers how ethnic attitudes or stereotypes held by Japanese residents (as the majority ethnic group) of Brazilian residents (as the minority ethnic group) factor into the former’s perceived emotional solidarity with the latter. The aim of this work is to (1) initially assess the factor structure of the Ethnic Attitude Scale (EAS) and Emotional Solidarity Scale (ESS) and (2) to determine if underlying factors of the EAS serve to explain factors of the ESS. Following a multistage sampling scheme, 456 Japanese households within Oizumi completed an on-site, self-administered questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analyses of the EAS and ESS revealed consistent two- and three-factor structures with extant findings in the literature. Japanese residents tended to indicate they perceived Brazilian residents slightly favorably on items from each of the EAS factors (i.e. character and intelligence and social evaluation), while responding with ambivalence to items within the ESS factors (i.e. welcoming nature, emotional closeness, and sympathetic understanding). Structural paths (in five of six scenarios) revealed that EAS factors explained between 27% and 59% of the variance in the ESS factors. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed at the close of the paper.