The topic of the Module “Institutions and Organizations in Japan” in the Sommer Semester 2022 is formulating research on international migration and migration institutional changes in contemporary Japan.
In this module, students will develop practical, hands-on approaches and theoretical perspectives to designing an academic research project, using the case study of different issues surrounding migration in Japan.
This module consists of two parts: Research and Theory. Particularly, in the first half of the course (mainly covered by Huy Tran), students will engage with the topics of developing research theme(s), question(s), and design, with a focus on the study of migration institutional change in Japan. Methodological approaches and necessary skills in conducting academic research such as dealing with different data sources will also be discussed in this first part of the course.
The second half of the course (mainly covered by Aimi Muranaka) focuses on the theoretical approaches to international migration issues in Japan. It sheds light on how migration is framed, conditioned, and structured in the country regarded now as an “immigration country” (e.g. Liu-Farrer 2020) despite the reluctance to implement official migration policies. Students will work with academic literature on migration study (in Asia) from sociological perspectives and different topics related to contemporary international migrations in Japan.
Some sessions will be scheduled as joint sessions (e.g. student presentations of their topics), and the schedules for such sessions will be notified on the Moodle course message board. The course requirement, a research proposal paper (6000 words, without tables and reference list), can be developed further as an exposé for an MA thesis.
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