Members List
Dr. Iris Issen
Visiting Researcher
Iris Issen (they/she) is an Assistant Professor at Ochanomizu University. Their research focuses on people who “cross borders”. Empirically, their research centres on the lived experiences of trans migrants in Japan and Europe, particularly those from the Sinophone world. By working with queer as an intersectional analytical category, they explore how “border crossing” (national, cultural, bodily) shapes and is shaped by social processes such as racialisation, cis- and hetero-normativity, nativism and nationalism in the context of globalisation and digitisation.
Research Projects
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career
Scientists, 2023-2025
Recent publications
Issen, Iris. (2025). When disconnectivity becomes the key to living: The diasporic experiences of contemporary trans Chinese people in Europe. Transitions: Journal of Transient Migration, online first, https://doi.org/10.1386/tjtm. (Open Access)
Issen, Iris. (2024). Chinese Transgender Women in Japan and Their Embodied Search for Sexuality in the Online-Offline Continuum. Transfers: Special Issue in Migrants and Their Smartphones: Interlaced Mobilities Online and Offline. (Open Access)
Issen, Iris. (2024). When Digital Media Intersects with Queerness: Transnational Connectivity and the Sense of (Dis) Connectedness among Chinese Trans Women in Japan. In Beatrice Zani and Isabelle Cheng ed., Living Across Connectivity: Intimacy, Entrepreneurship and Activism of East Asian Migrants Online and Offline. London: Anthem Press, pp.113-136.
Issen, Iris. (2022). Studying Digital Media in Diasporic Transnationalism Context – The Case of International Migrants in Japan. In: Forum Mithani and Griseldis Kirsch ed., Handbook of Japanese Media and Popular Culture in Transition. Tokyo: MHM Limited. ISBN: 9784909286048.
For the list of her publications, please go here.