Report

Ito International Research Center Symposium “Crossing Boundaries: Migration, Mediation, Morality” was held from 8th to 10th of June, 2019.

Pictures of the Symposium

The symposium was attended by over 100 researchers, students, and interested citizens. Below are the reports of the symposium written by the participants.

【Report 1】
This symposium provided a truly interdisciplinary perspective on the now highly pertinent topic of international migration. By bringing together leading scholars from fields of anthropology, sociology and the physical sciences, the three-day event allowed participants to cross not only the boundaries of nations and ethnicities, but also disciplines and different angles of looking at the same phenomenon.
Despite the disparate disciplines of its presenters, the symposium accentuated the thematic keyword of “identity” of various peoples, both at the group and individual levels, and asked the audience to question existing identities that are currently taken as granted and matter-of-fact. In one way, the questioning is done by zooming in on little-known minorities (such as Prof. Mirzai’s African-Iranians, Prof. Kuroki’s Lebanese-Brazilians and Prof. Fletcher’s Englishmen in colonial Shanghai). In another way, it occurs when the definitions of commonly accepted terms are problematized (such as Prof. Bates’s “slaves,” Prof. Goto’s “heretic” and Prof. Oka’s “homeland”). By providing nuanced and complex answers to the question of “who are we,” the presenters put forth brand new notions of social belonging that is worthy of continued developments in future studies.
This symposium was particularly innovative in bringing together a group of presenters from the physical sciences, who provided a much longer view of human migration, beyond the confines of race, nation and social groups so central to social scientific research. Prof. Maat, Nakayama and Ota all managed to detect genetic changes in biological organisms (including humans themselves) that suggest how cultural changes, compounded by different environmental conditions in different geographies, concretely shaped how humans live and die. The impact of human migration, as studies of genetics and the environment tells us, changed much more than just the identity of the humans themselves but also many other living creatures. Migration, thus, allows boundaries to be crossed between social and physical sciences in ways that few other topics could so clearly.
The resulting discussions from the presentations are undoubtedly a source of great inspirations for younger scholars and the general audience. At a personal level, my own research, already interdisciplinary in nature, benefits from further extending into many other disciplines via the frameworks proposed by the symposium’s many presenters. The ability to think flexibly across theories, concepts and indeed, a limited part of the world, is a key takeaway that I would like to implement in my own conceptualization of what is a good piece of research in the field of migration studies.

(Written by Mr. Xiaochen Su, Ph.D. Student, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo)

【Report 2】
The symposium “Crossing Boundaries: Migration, Mediation, Morality” was an enlightening and precious occasion for me. I was not one of the speakers but was able to participate as an assistant of the symposium organizers. During the symposium, speakers shared research results on human migration of various fields.
To me, the documentary film “Playing with Nan” (2012) directed by Dr. Dipesh Kharel was the most impressive part of this symposium program. The director did not use excessively dramatic images and music, but instead let the cast talk about their abundant emotion and showed the changes threatening a family caused by one of its member’s “Crossing Boundaries” as a migrant worker. Dr. Kharel captured the deep grief of the parents who had to send their son abroad because of their economic situation and the suffering of the son’s wife who came to feel the spatial distance between her and her husband made it more difficult to understand each other. The documentary showed only a family’s personal affairs, but the scenes also seemed universal, as though they could happen to any audience. On the other hand, the film presented the problem on a grander scale, as it indicated in a detached tone that cruel labour environments for foreign workers were tolerated in present Japan, although it was his countryman who overworked the film’s main figure, a Nepalese man, with huge debts and low wages. Japanese people, who probably made up the majority of the symposium’s audience, and Western people whose countries also accepted “cheap labourers” from overseas (labourers who resign themselves to harsh working conditions as long as they are better than those in their own countries) may have faced the international structure in which people of impoverished countries are forced to “cross boundaries”, just like in the family’s case depicted in the film.
When a symposium sets a highly relevant theme like “Crossing Boundaries”, many of audience members might expect to listen to an interpretation of the history that has formed the circumstances of the present world and of problems developing in our current society. Content that can strongly move an audience is not always advisable; however, it is still important to broaden the view of the majority who, consciously or unconsciously, exploit or marginalize immigrants and refugees and to raise their awareness of the issues presented in the film. In this light, I reaffirmed the power of film through “Playing with Nan”.
Research presentations are also powerful, as they have their own roles, like providing objective numeric data and analyses of the subjective views of concerned parties. It is also important that results of the studies are shared widely in an open place like this symposium. Then, how much further can research organizations and academic societies go to turn the spotlight on and to remedy real-world problems while maintaining objectivity and academic quality? ―― The symposium “Crossing Boundaries” left behind this question to me.

(Written by Akiko Itahashi, Assistant Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia and ASNET, The University of Tokyo)

Information

Day： 8th ～ 10th June, 2019

Venue： Ito Hall, Ito International Research Centre (Morning session on June 8th)
    Main Conference Room, Institute for Advance Studies on Asia (Afternoon session of June 8th , all day 9th and 10th)

Aim of the Symposium: ：

The International symposium 'Crossing Boundaries' will bring together scholars from many disciplines (history, literature, social and natural anthropology, sociology, political sciences, religious studies, geography, environmental studies, and engineering) to discuss multifaceted aspects of migration.

Contemporary world is faced with an acute crisis of migration. The fact that millions of people are forced to leave their homes in the Middle East and Africa illustrate the failures of the nation state system that characterized the universal mode of human political organization since WWI. With the dissolution of colonial empires, both political leaders and intellectuals hoped sovereign nation states will give rights to every individual and protect their dignity and equality. Yet, international community’s inability to confront and solve ethical, political, and material consequences of the migrants’ movement reveals the deeper political and intellectual defects of the global order of the post-WWII period. Migration as a political, cultural and social phenomenon challenges common ideas of citizenship and morality as many of the nation states fail to give migrants rights, while those societies trying to accommodate waves of migration are witnessing high levels of popular racist backlash among their citizens.

Although scholars, journalist and general public recognize the insufficiency of the nation state system’s ideal response to the migration crisis, we have yet to understand all aspects of this crisis, and imagine a solution or an alternative political culture that can overcome these defects. More importantly, communities of social scientists and humanities scholars must cooperate to reflect on the historical roots and multifaceted aspects of this contemporary crisis to guide political leaders towards a more idealistic solution.

The symposium will re-examine the movement of people in the context of history, environment, culture and evolution, and critically engage with the current discourse on immigration. We will also connect on-going research projects with regional focus and beyond to encourage dialogue beyond disciplinary and regional boundaries.

Program

The latest information　https://asnet-utokyo.jp/studies/event/5373

Organizers：
The University of Tokyo (Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA) , Network for Education and Study on Asia (ASNET))

Co-organizers：
The Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Tokyo (TINDAS) Integrated Area Studies on South Asia
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas: Relational Studies on Global Crises, Establishing a New Paradigm of Social/ Human Sciences based on Relational Studies (Project Leader, Keiko Sakai, Chiba University)
Grants-in-aid for Research/Basic Research A: Towards the construction of ‘Islam & Gender Studies’: Building foundations for comprehensive discussion on gender justice and Islam (Project Leader, Eiji Nagasawa, the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

Contact： crossingboundaries2019[at]gmail.com