Women’s Cross-border Activism in East Asia

Today we find many feminist activists raising their voices in various public spaces, such as the streets, squares, public transportation, university campuses, chambers of parliament, media, cyber space, etc. Through activism in such spaces they achieve global solidarity in working towards solutions for common problems. This study will discuss how such activism has evolved in East Asia, especially focusing on (1) The joint labor movement of the local/migrant domestic workers in regard to the ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (C189); (2) Women’s anti-militarization activism; and (3) The transregional/transnational activism of Chinese feminists in the 2010s.

Gender Analysis of Capital, Body and Mobility

Gender Analysis of Sex, Body, and Reproduction

Hurdles of Women’s Political Participation: Surveys of Diet Members and Party Officials

IT-BPO International Division of Labor and Gender in Emerging Asia

Fumie Ohashi (Associate Professor, IGS) [Co-investigator],
Mariko Adachi (Visiting Researcher, IGS) [Co-Investigator],
Yoshie Hori (Professor, Waseda University) [Principal Investigator]

This joint research project envisages a new theory of international political economy through empirical study of Information Technology and Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) industries developed in different regions of Asia. Comparative analysis of each region will provide insights into many questions, such as ways in which female labor is allocated under the latest modes of the international division of labor; ways in which the emergence of a middle class and their consumption will pan out; the manner they witness the urbanization; and just how democracy will accommodate the shift of socioeconomic relations.

Domestic and Care Workers in Japan in the Age of International Gendered Division of Reproductive Labor: A Genealogy of Solidarity

This research project will discuss how Japan is facing an international division of reproductive labor by focusing on the following two topics: (1) Unequal relations of employers/agencies/labor; (2) Labor regime surrounding the domestic workers and care workers, arguing that this regime can be changed through workers’ individual/collective actions based on their limited social capital.

Politics of Gender Quota: Institutionalization and Backlash

This study analyzes the effects of the gender quota system, that was introduced to enhance women’s representation in the Korean legislatures. South Korea has introduced a gender quota system in the early 2000s by which parties are required to nominate women to a certain percentage of political party candidates. However, women still make up less than 20% as of 2019. This outcome has raised questions about the effect of the current quota system. Previous studies have pointed out that one of the reasons the quota system did not work was quota backlash, that is, various forms of resistance to quota’s implementation and defamation of the quota women. This study aims at clarifying the reasons why gender quota system does not work in South Korea by analyzing parties’ recruitment pattern, the political career path of women legislators elected by quota, and (in)formal forms of quota backlash over the past 15 years.

Migrant Women and the Reproductive Sphere in Hong Kong: Gender Analysis of Hong Kong as a Global City

This research project will analyze how the reproductive labor power of migrant women has been allocated in Hong Kong by collecting oral histories from Chinese domestic workers, foreign domestic workers, and their employers. Hong Kong has shifted its economic strategy from export-oriented manufacturing in favor of becoming a “global city.” While establishing itself as the international financial/trade center of East Asia in the 1970s-1980s, Hong Kong started to accept foreign domestic workers. This trend coincided with the labor reallocation of Chinese women who migrated from mainland Canton, becoming domestic workers in Hong Kong. Even today, this dynamism of the trans-local and trans-national migration of women has been affecting the socio-economic relations of Hong Kong. By collecting “memories of care” from the different migrant women and employers in Hong Kong, this project will shed light on the shift of labor in the? reproductive sphere against the background of “global city” development.

Exploring Aspects of Mobility, Sex, and Power in “Karayuki-san”

The COVID-19 epidemic made it impossible to travel abroad, which forced me to revise the original research plans. The findings of this study, then, are as follows.
First, while much attention has been focused on the fact that “Karayuki-san” engaged (sometimes were made to engage) in prostitution in foreign lands, tracing the women after they were taken in by rich people out of the brothel revealed that in some cases, the women remained under some kind of contractual relationship in the form of “servitude” even after leaving the brothel. Second, by focusing not only on the experience of prostituion, but also on women’s reproductive sphere, including biological reproduction and care, I have gained insights into how childlessness has a lifelong influence on women’s lives.

Norway-Japan: Bridging Research and Education in Gender Equality and Diversity

［Norway Research Council, INTPART, 287699］

A collaborative project with the Center for Gender Studies of NTNU. This project analyzes the current state of gender equality and diversity in Norway and Japan, considering the social, cultural, historical and political backgrounds of both countries. The aim of the project is to develop new perspectives for researching gender and diversity issues through comparative understanding of the differences and similarities of the two societies. Individual research projects are organized according to members’ research interests.