Vortrag am 31. Mai 2021, 14 Uhr CET: „Exit Through the Narrow Gate: Compartmentalized Internationalization and Global Talents in Japan“ (Ryoko Yamamoto)

In a thriving knowledge economy, universities around the world see international students as a key element in their survival and growth, while employers eye on them as a talent pool gathered from around the world. Japanese universities and business leaders are no exception. However, despite Japan’s efforts in recruiting international students and channeling them into...

Vortrag am 7. Juni 2021, 14 Uhr CET „Migrant Labor in Japan’s Agriculture: New Schemes and Social Inclusion“ (Glenda Roberts, Noriko Fujita)

This study queries newcomer migrant labor in Japan, from the perspectives of various stakeholders: the government, farmers and other employers, and local communities. Migrant labor schemes have existed in Japan under the guise of homeland visitation (Brazilian Japanese workers since 1990) and ‘Technical Interns and Trainees’ (TITP, widely understood as short-term workers in the guise...

Vortrag am 10. Juni 2021, 13 Uhr CET „Municipal Politics of De/Re-population in Japan“ (Ken Hijino)

For decades, many of Japan’s communities have seen exodus of the young in search of education and employment opportunities in the major cities. During 2010-2015, 1,419 (82.5%) municipalities out of 1,719 in Japan experienced population decline. The responses to and impacts of such depopulation, mainly but not exclusively in rural areas, have been widely documented...

Vortrag am 14. Juni 2021, 14 Uhr CET: „The Question of Immigrant Belonging in an Ethnonationalist Japan“ (Gracia Liu-Farrer)

Japan identifies itself as a nation whose nationhood is founded on the ideology of a common descent (Befu 2001). Japan did not have such a unified ethno-based self-understanding before the modernizing movement known as the Meiji Restoration (1868). Rather, the Tokugawa regime’s “rule by status”—a practice that segregates the ruled by groups—created segmented cultural traditions...

Vortrag am 17. Juni 2021, 13 Uhr CET „Trans-Imperial Perspectives from an Imperial Center: Anarchist Thought and Practice in Interwar Japan“ (Robert Kramm)

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Anarchist theory and practice have global aims of liberation. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, anarchism furnished a comprehensive critique and analysis of state rule, capitalism and imperialism, and it offered alternative models of being in contrast to established regimes of power. As recent research has demonstrated, anarchist thought and practice was a...

Vortrag am 21. Juni 2021, 14 Uhr CET „Labour Crossings: The Making of Cross-border Labour Markets between Japan and Vietnam“ (Aimi Muranaka)

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This study presents how is a cross-border labour market between Japan and Vietnam is constructed by Japanese private intermediary actors. The Japanese government has been implementing de-facto migration policies and still denies the introduction official migratory measures despite the accelerated drop in the working population. Positioned in the literature of the international migration industry, this...

Vortrag am 28. Juni 2021, 14 Uhr CET „Migrant-led Diversification in Japan: Urban Superdiversity in Tokyo 2021?“ (Sakura Yamamura)

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Contemporary societies are increasingly characterized by the ‘diversification of diversity’ or: superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007), particularly in the urban contexts, where global flows of capital, goods and people are concentrated (Sassen, 2001; Castles et al., 2009). Although this connection between the global phenomenon of transnational migration and the local socio-spatial impacts on the cities appears evident,...