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Dr. Helena Hof

Visiting Researcher

Helena Hof is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology (ISEK) at the University of Zurich and PI of the SNSF Starting Grant project “Provisional Futures: Migrants as wanted workers, yet temporary residents (TEMP Migration)”. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Bonn, Germany, and master’s and doctoral degrees from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Before joining ISEK, she has held teaching and research positions at Waseda University and at Sophia University, Japan, the position of senior teaching and research assistant at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies at the University of Zurich, and a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany. Next to her long-term affiliation with IAM, she has also been an affiliated researcher at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore and the Center for Metropolitan Studies, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Helena Hof’s ethnographically-informed work explores the implications current demographic change has on migration, mobilities, and socio-cultural change. It spans Asia (especially Japan and Singapore), Europe, and the Americas and focuses on the intricacies of people’s lifeworlds in global metropoles under rapid transformation. In her current SNSF-funded project, Helena Hof and the research team collaborate with IAM and with the Global Migration Institute, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada, in the aim to analyze how temporariness, as well as social categories of difference such as gender, ethnicity, and class, affect migrants’ placemaking and entail shifting meanings of work and a life worth living.

Research Projects

June 2026 – May 2031: PI of SNSF Starting Grant project "Provisional Futures: Migrants as wanted workers, yet temporary residents", Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK), UZH; international collaborators: Prof. Gracia Liu-Farrer, Institute of Asian Migrations, Waseda University, Japan, and Prof. Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration [CERC Migration], Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada.
Since 2025: “Migratory trajectories: Evolving careers across borders and time” (with Aimi Muranaka) funded by the Toshiba International Foundation.
Since 2025: Collaboration for Special Issue on the Anthropology of Gender in Asian Migration with M. Wadhwa, R. Achenbach, D. Kim, and A. Muranaka.
Since 2024: Comparative Perspectives on the Transformation of East Asian Labor Markets through International Skilled Migration, funded by the Toshiba International Foundation, with Aimi Muranaka, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen, and Kikuko Nagayoshi, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. Workshop Program and Abstract (PDF, 211 KB)
Since 2024: Recalibrating ‘Skill’ in Changing Immigration Regimes: Skilled Migrants and the Nature of Work in Asia (with A. Muranaka, R. Achenbach, Y. Wang, and B.S.A. Yeoh), in collaboration with the Asian Migration Cluster, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
03/2021-02/2025: Principal Investigator of ‘Foreign entrepreneurs in Tokyo's and Singapore's knowledge-intensive start-up sector', sub-project of Qualification and Skill in the Migration Process of Foreign Workers in Asia (QaMaFA), collaborative project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (with Ruth Achenbach, Aimi Muranaka, Joohyun Justine Park, and Megha Wadhwa).
2019-2025: Tokyo's Attractiveness for Global Talent: A Comparative Study of Tokyo, Singapore, and Sao Paulo, Principal Investigator, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Early-Career Scientists Award.

Recent publications

Book

Hof, Helena. 2022. The EU Migrant Generation in Asia: Middle-Class Aspirations in Asian Global Cities. Bristol University Press, Global Migration and Social Change Series. Podcast of the book at New Books Network.

Journal articles and book chapters

Hof, Helena. 2025. "The immobility of the highly mobile: Existential (im)mobility among transnational entrepreneurs in post-pandemic Singapore." Mobilities. DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2025.2598269.
Hof, Helena. 2025. "‘White Innovation’: Conceptualizing Changing Racial Hierarchies Through Migrant Entrepreneurship in Singapore and Japan." In Migration, Transnational Flows, and the Contested Meanings of Race in Asia, IMISCOE Research Series, S. Lan & M. Debnár (Eds). Springer, pp. 121-140 (Open Access).
Hof, Helena, Aimi Muranaka, and Joohyun Justine Park. 2024. “Employment as an anchor: The prospects of emerging East Asian skilled migration regimes through the lens of migrants’ access to the labor market.” Asia and Pacific Migration Journal. DOI: 10.1177/01171968241292376.
Hof, Helena. 2024. “Pushing Social Norms: Foreign Entrepreneurs Fueling Japan’s Innovation?» Contemporary Japan. DOI 10.1080/18692729.2024.2423969.
Hof, Helena and Jaafar Alloul. 2023. Migratory class-making in global Asian cities: The European mobile middle negotiating ambivalent privilege in Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2023.2271669
Hof, Helena. 2022. ‘Die mixed embeddedness ausländischer Unternehmer*innen in Tōkyōs Startup-Ökosystem.’ [The mixed embeddedness of foreign entrepreneurs in Tōkyō’s startup ecosystem] In: Chiavacci, David; Wieczorek, Iris. Japan 2022. München: VSJF – Vereinigung für sozialwissenschaftliche Japanforschung, 233-259.
Hof, Helena, Simon Pemberton and Emilia Pietka-Nykaza. 2021. 'EU migrant retention and the temporalities of migrant staying: A new conceptual framework.' Comparative Migration Studies. 10.1186/s40878-021-00225-5 Watch YouTube trailer here.
Hof, Helena and Yen-Fen Tseng. 2020. 'When “global talents” struggle to become local workers: The new face of skilled migration to corporate Japan.' Asia and Pacific Migration Journal 29 (4): 511-531. DOI: 10.1177/0117196820984088.
Hof, Helena. 2020. 'Intersections of Race and Skills in European Migration to Asia: Between White Cultural Capital and ‘Passive Whiteness’. Ethnic and Racial Studies. DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1822535
Hof, Helena. 2020. Opting Out for Getting In: Existential Mobility in European Graduates’ Migration to Asia.' Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. DOI: 10.1080/15562948.2020.1755761
Hof, Helena. 2020. ‘Locally Embedded Cosmopolitans? European Millennials’ Boundary Work in Singapore and Tokyo’ In Contemporary European Emigration, Brigitte Suter und Lisa Åkesson (eds). Routledge: pp. 39-57.
Hof. Helena. 2019. ‘The Eurostars Go Global: Young Europeans’ Migration to Asia for Distinction and Alternative Life Paths.’ Mobilities. DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2019.1643164.
Hof, Helena und Gracia Liu-Farrer. 2019. ‘Gender, Labour and Migration in Japan.’ In The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture, Mark Pendleton, Jennifer Coates und Lucy Fraser (eds). Routledge: pp. 189-98.
Hof, Helena. 2018. ‘‘Worklife Pathways’ to Singapore and Japan: Gender and Racial dynamics in Europeans` Mobility to Asia’, Social Science Japan Journal, Special Issue Winter 2018, 21 (1): 45-65. https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyx035

For the list of Helena Hof's previous publications, please go here.