Members List
Dr. Jotaro Kato
Visiting Researcher
Jotaro Kato is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in International Studies from the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University. Before entering academia, he worked as a practitioner in migrant support services.
His research examines labor migration to Japan and migrant livelihoods in East and Southeast Asia. His interests include international migration, migrant labor regimes, irregular migration, migration and development, migrant agency, and multicultural coexistence policy in Japan and the broader Asian context.
His recent work focuses on how migrants navigate institutional constraints after arrival, particularly Vietnamese migrants under Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) and Specified Skilled Worker (SSW) schemes. Drawing on the theoretical framework of migratory agency, he analyzes how migrants continuously revise plans, manage uncertainty, and sustain mobility over time. His work highlights migration not as a one-time decision to move, but as an ongoing process of managing uncertain futures under restrictive migration regimes.
Research Projects
2025–2029 — Principal Investigator, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists “Migratory Agency among Vietnamese Migrants: Interview Research in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam”
2024–2028 — Co-Investigator, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) “Comparative Analysis of Multi-Stage Migration Status Transition: From Technical Intern Training to Specified Skilled Worker”
2023–2027 — Co-Investigator, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) “Development and Evaluation of a Universal Health Support Program in Large Public Housing Complexes with High Proportions of Foreign Residents”
2023–2027 — Co-Investigator, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) “Toward Systematic Refugee Studies through Area Studies Collaboration: The Case of the Rohingya”
2021–2025 — Principal Investigator, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists “Impacts of COVID-19 on Migrants and Their Countries of Origin: Toward Sustainable International Mobility”
2021–2025 — Co-Investigator, JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) “Determinants of International Students’ Educational Mobility: A Comparative Study of Japan and Germany”
Recent publications
Kato, Jotaro (2025) (ed., supervised by Hiroshi Komai). Reconsidering the Specified Skilled Worker System: From Workforce to Human Beings (Migration and Diaspora Studies 13). Akashi Shoten. (in Japanese)
Kato, Jotaro and Gracia Liu-Farrer (2025). “Postwar Unauthorized Migration into Japan.” In No Island Is an Island: Perspectives on Immigration to Japan, edited by Michael Strausz, 54–70. University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Kato, Jotaro (ed., supervised by Hiroshi Komai) (2023). Dismantling the Immigration Bureau and Establishing the Immigration Agency: From Immigration Control to Multicultural Coexistence (Migration and Diaspora Studies 10). Akashi Shoten. (in Japanese)
Kato, Jotaro and Gracia Liu-Farrer (2022). “Becoming ‘Illegal’: The Institutional Mechanisms of Migrants’ Illegalization in Japan.” Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 44: 183–197.
Kato, Jotaro (2022). Irregular Migrants in Japan: How ‘Illegality’ Is Produced and Maintained. Akashi Shoten. (in Japanese)
Sigona, Nando, Jotaro Kato, and Irina Kuznetsova (2021). “Migration Infrastructures and the Production of Migrants’ Irregularity in Japan and the United Kingdom.” Comparative Migration Studies 9(1).
Kato, Jotaro (2019). “Living in ‘Illegality’: What Makes It Possible for Irregular Migrants to Live in Japan.” Migration Policy Review 11: 60–74. (in Japanese)
For more details, please go here.