Wednesday 22nd September 2010   6.00 to 8.00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London NW1 4QP
Nearest tube station: Baker Street – Map

Admission free, book here

This sixth seminar in the 2010 series, ‘States in Change: National Identity in the UK and Japan’, will provide two very different perspectives on the subject of ‘Immigrants, Minorities and the Multiculturalism Debate’. Multicultural Britain has a long history of immigration and integration of foreign nationals into local communities. Japan’s traditionally homogeneous society, for historic and economic reasons, has followed another pattern. Our speakers will explore the issues facing the UK and Japan with respect to immigration policy, political and economic circumstances and social attitudes. They will look at the history of immigration in both countries and consider the impact of multiculturalism on national identity.

Contributors:
Dr Atsuko Abe is an associate professor of International Relations at J. F. Oberlin University, Tokyo. Her research interests are: comparison between Japanese and European practices of immigration policies, citizenship policies, and the impact of migration on the nation-state system. Her publications include: “Japanese Local Governments Facing the Reality of Immigration”, ‘Japan Focus’, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Atsuko-ABE/2522 (posted in September 2007) and “Migration and Post-colonialism”, ‘Migration Citizenship Education’
http://www.migrationeducation.org/51.1.html?&rid=120&cHash=3106240c12 (posted in November 2008). She is a Visiting Academic at Centre on Migration, Policy and Society and a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, University of Oxford from 1 September 2010 to 31 August 2011.

Alison Park heads the Society and Social Change Team at NatCen, the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), the UK’s largest independent social research organisation. She is closely linked with NatCen’s annual British Social Attitudes survey which, since 1983, has examined the social, moral and political attitudes and values of the British public and whether these are changing over time. She is the ESRC funded Co-ordinator of the UK arm of the European Social Survey, and represents Britain in the International Social Research Programme (ISSP), a global research enterprise which involves carrying out comparable research in over 40 countries worldwide, including Japan.

Alison has nearly twenty years experience in social research, having joined NatCen (then SCPR) in 1991. She has an M.Phil. in Sociology from Nuffield College in Oxford.

Chair: Professor Ian Neary is Director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, a Fellow at St Antony’s College and Professor in the Politics of Japan at the University of Oxford. He obtained his doctorate at Sussex University and his principal publications include: ‘Political Protest and Social Control in Pre-war Japan: the origins of Buraku liberation’ (1989), ‘Intervention and Technological Innovation: Government and the Pharmaceutical Industry in the UK and Japan’ (with J. Howells, 1995), ‘Human Rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (2002), The State and Politics in Japan’ (2002).

To book, please go to www.dajf.org.uk/booking. Alternatively, please send your name, affiliation and address by email to events@dajf.org.uk.

In partnership with:
The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation