24th February

University of Birmingham’s Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRIS) and Waseda University’s Institute of Asian Migrations (IAM) are proud to invite you to a NODE UK|Japan webinar on Vulnerable migrants and Covid-19 in the UK and Japan.

This jointly organised webinar explores the impact of Covid-19 on migrants with precarious legal status in the UK and Japan. It examines how migration governance in the context of a public health crisis can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and produce new ones, affecting disproportionally migrant communities already at the margin of our societies.

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For more information and attendance registration (FREE), CLICK HERE.

28th January

Waseda Contemporary Japan Study Group, the Institute of Asian Migrations, and the Waseda Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies are proud to invite you to a mini-symposium on Nikkeijin Brazilian migration to Japan.

The 2-hour mini-symposium will feature two presentations by Suma Ikeuchi and Sarah LeBaron von Baeyer, followed by a discussion lead by Joshua Hotaka Roth. 

This event will take place online at 19:00-21:00 (NYC time) or 16:00-18:00 (Californian time) on January 27th, and simultaneously at 9:00-11:00 on January 28th for attendants in Japan. Please register here to receive the Zoom invitation link before the event: https://forms.gle/jGRxW56XwtBAJYET9. The event will be online and will be recorded to be available for colleagues who cannot attend. 

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For more information and attendance registration (FREE), CLICK HERE.

14th January

The Institute of Asian Migrations is proud to invite you to an online seminar on Zoom given by WANG Zi, Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Duisburg- Essen, titled “Migrants’ education and well-being during Covid-19: The case of Chinese communities in Germany”.

On January 14, 2021 at 17:00-18:30 (JST) / 9:00-10:30 (CET), Dr. Wang will discuss how young migrants’ educational and well-being needs – both academically and emotionally – during the Covid-19-induced school closure were addressed by community initiatives. Focusing on the Chinese communities in Germany, Dr. Wang will present data collected in Chinese heritage language (CHL) schools and show that their programmes had a positive impact on members’ overall well-being.

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For more information and video recording of this event, CLICK HERE.

2020

17th December

The project "COVID-19 Response Measures and Migrant Workers' RIghts in Major East and Southeast Asian Destinations"  that IAM member Dr. Jotaro Kato has taken part in has just released their report on COVID’s influences on migrant workers in East and Southeast Asia.

Link to the report: https://hrwg.org/2020/12/17/book-repression-and-resilience/

17th December

The Institute of Asian Migrations is proud to invite you to an online seminar on Zoom given by Mette Thunø, Associate Professor at Aarhus University, titled “China as an Authoritarian Diaspora State: Controlling Transnational Space”.

On Thursday December 17th at 17:00-18:30 (JST), Dr. Thunø will expose her research that seeks to go beyond the “wooing and tapping” theory to explain how the Chinese state manages its diaspora. She will outline how the party-states produces narratives that re-territorializes the diaspora through direct control with physical space, symbolic control of transnational space and discursive control of imaginative space. 

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For more information and attendance registration (FREE), CLICK HERE.

10th December

Prof. Gracia Liu-Farrer, the Director of IAM and Prof. Michael Strausz (Texas Christian University) talked about Japan’s immigration policies and their influences on immigrants in Japan at Japan Forum at UC San Diego.

Please check out the recording here:https://youtu.be/qDpR4xHCnT4.

It can also be accessed here:https://jfit.ucsd.edu/zoominar/past-japan-zoominars.html#Immigration-Policies-in-Japan

3rd December

The Institute of Asian Migrations hosted an online seminar on Zoom given by Daniel Awigra and Mariko Hayashi, respectively Project Leader and Research Coordinator of a research project studying the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on migrant workers and their livelihood. 

On December 3rd, Daniel Awigra and Mariko Hayashi outlined the results of their cross-country research spanning over Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan. Civil society and experts took part in this study to explain how immigration policies and the recent COVID-crisis impacted migrant workers. Their findings suggest that the pandemic created additional layers of borders around migrant workers. 

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For more information, audio and video records on this online seminar, CLICK HERE. 

26th November

The Institute of Asian Migrations hosted an online seminar on Zoom by Haiqing Yu, Associate Professor at RMIT University. 

On Thursday November 26th, Dr. Yu exposed her multiple-methods research on social media among the Chinese diaspora in Australia. The lecture ended with a discussion on the controversies around Chinese social media platforms (WeChat and TikTok) in the West, Chinese Australians’ responses, and the implication for multicultural citizenship in Australia.

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For more information, audio and video records on this online seminar, CLICK HERE. 

15th April

Book release: Immigrant Japan - Mobility and Belonging in an Ethno-nationalist Society by Gracia Liu-Farrer

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Google Preview: CLICK HERE

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Immigrant Japan?  Sounds like a contradiction, but as Gracia Liu-Farrer shows, millions of immigrants make their lives in Japan, dealing with the tensions between belonging and not belonging in this ethno-nationalist country. Why do people want to come to Japan? Where do immigrants with various resources and demographic profiles fit in the economic landscape? How do immigrants narrate belonging in an environment where they are "other" at a time when mobility is increasingly easy and belonging increasingly complex? 

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Gracia Liu-Farrer illuminates the lives of these immigrants by bringing in sociological, geographical, and psychological theories—guiding the reader through life trajectories of migrants of diverse backgrounds while also going so far as to suggest that Japan is already an immigrant country.