This paper focuses on the narratives and embodiment of noisemakers in noise complaints in a small town of rural Japan. By building on the intersection of sound studies, body, and migration, this paper aims to critically address the long-discussed concept of ‘noise’ through the perspectives of migrants who are perceived as ‘noisemakers’ in the neighbor relations between Japanese neighbors and migrants. This study was conducted through months of fieldwork in a small town in Japan, in which an ethnic concentration of Japanese descendants from North Sulawesi, Indonesia, has been residing for almost two decades. Sensory ethnography was adopted in addition to participant observation and in-depth interviews that presented the narratives of five Japanese descendants working in seafood processing factories. The findings suggest that perception of the ‘unwanted’ bodily presence becomes a salient metaphorical sense of ‘noise’ which is embodied in migrants as byproducts of the psychological noise of the hearers. This ‘noise’ evokes series of complaints which also escalate into space control in the neighborhood. More than just neighbor relations in negotiating private–public spaces, the phenomena of noisemaking and noise complaints in this study are layered with overlapping unequal social and power structures concerning neighbors, workers, and migrants with stigma of gaijin and ‘noisemakers’.

This paper elucidates the boundary management between (dirty) work and religious life for Indonesian migrant workers in Japan. It answers the critical question of how migrants doing physical, dirty work in fish-processing factories navigate the boundaries between work and religious life. The data in this study was derived from fieldwork in rural Japan, through participant observation, sensory embodiment in the daily activities of migrants and interviews. The study suggests that clothing and appearance act as an on-off switch between the "fishy" job and a life with dignity at church. The boundaries between work and church for Indonesian migrant workers in Japan are located and managed via the practices of expelling the foul smells from the body and the working uniform, and by emphasizing the visibility of fashion and branding at the church.