Panel (Hybrid): “Immigration, Refugees, and Race in Japan: A Turning Point?”

Date: 

Monday, October 24, 2022, 12:00pm to 1:15pm

Location: 

Online and K354, CGIS Knafel Bldg., 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA.

Sharpe Fraser poster

"Racism and Anti-Racism in Japan: A Comparative Perspective"
Michael Sharpe 
Associate Professor of Political Science,
York College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

"Japanese Attitudes toward Economic and Humanitarian Migrants"
Nicholas A.R. Fraser 
Policy Innovations Fellow, Harvard University


Moderator: Christina L. Davis
Director, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations; Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, Department of Government; and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

This seminar is part of the Special Series on Policy Innovations in Crises, supported by a grant from the Japan Foundation. Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Migration and the Harvard Undergraduate Japan Policy Network.

Register Now

Note: In-person participants can enter the room on first-come, first-served basis, and may be asked to participate online instead if the room is filled to capacity.

Additional Resources

  1. Michael Orlando Sharpe, "Shinzo Abe's Death Reveals Complex Story of Discrimination and Xenophobia," The Washington Post, July 27, 2022.
  2. James Hollifield and Michael Orlando Sharpe, "Japan as 'Emerging Migration State'," International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Volume 17 (2017), 371–400.
  3. Michael O. Sharpe, “Two Sides of a Similar Coin: A New Norm of Constrained Rights or Latecomers to Immigration in East Asia? Commentary on Japan and South Korea,” in Controlling Immigration (4th edition), Stanford University Press, 2022. 
  4. Michael O. Sharpe, Postcolonial Citizens and Ethnic Migration: the Netherlands and Japan in the Age of Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
  5. Michael O. Sharpe,  "What Does Blood Membership Mean in Political Terms: The Political Incorporation of Latin American Nikkeijin (Japanese Descendants) in Japan 1990-2004", Japanese Journal of Political Science, Volume 12 Issue 1 (Feb. 2011), 113-142.
  6. Nicholas A. R. Fraser and John W. Cheng. 2022. “Do natives prefer white immigrants? Evidence from Japan.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 45(14), 2678-2704.
  7. John W. Cheng and Nicholas A. R. Fraser. “Japanese Newspaper Portrayals of Refugees – a Frame Analysis from 1985 to 2017.” Journal of Refugee Studies, 2022.
  8. Nicholas A. R. Fraser and Go Murakami. 2022. “The Role of Humanitarianism in Shaping Public Attitudes toward Refugees.” Political Psychology, 43(2):255-275.