ASNET and Relational Studies Project  held a photo exhibition at UTokyo, Japan

Report (in Japanese) can be downloaded from HERE

 

　

Those who practice Islam in their daily lives are generally called Muslims. In such places as Japan and the United States, where they live as minorities, they are called Americans, Japanese, Arabs, or Pakistanis, and these identities indicate their own─or sometimes their parents’─origins of birth. However, labelling them as Muslims has often simplified their diverse identities and realities into a rather normative image.

This photo exhibition seeks to shed light on these diversities of Muslim minorities through vivid and precious photos taken by two photographers in Japan and the United States. Focusing on these Muslim minorities, the photographs aim to unveil their separate identities, which have been otherwise obscured by unilateral labeling from external societies.

Accompanying this photo exhibition, a workshop and small discussion sessions are to be organized as supplementary events. In this one-week program, we will consider aspects that have helped connect, share, and divide people’s emotions,  senses, and thoughts against the current backdrop of global complexities.

We look forward to your participation.

※Free admission, no registration required

Photo Exhibition	Period：September 29th to October 6th, 2018. 10:00-6:00 (Closed at 5 p.m. on the last day of exhibition) Identities of Minority Muslims in the US and Japan Venue：Lobby, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo Photographs are provided by： Rick Rocamora (photographer) Kenei Sato (photographer)
Workshop	Date：September 29th, 2018 Venue：Main Conference Room, 3rd floor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia 13:00-15:00 Identities of Minority Muslims in the US and Japan (Language: Japanese) Hirofumi Okai (Waseda University) —Japanese Case Kei Takahashi (JSPS/ Sophia University) —American Case Junko Toriyama (Ritsumeikan University) —Comments 15:30-17:30 Muslims and Identities Captured (Language: English and Japanese) Photos and talks by Rick Rocamora Kenei Sato Translations by Junko Toriyama Moderator of the workshop: Emi Goto
Talk Sessions	Venue：Lobby, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo Sep 30th    Cancelled due to bad weather Oct 1st 5:00-6:00　Keiko Sakai, Chiba University (Japanese) Oct 3rd 5:00-6:00　Rick Rocamora × Kei Takahashi (Japanese & English) Oct 5th 5:00-6:00　Eiji Nagasawa, UTokyo (Japanese) Oct 6th 2:00-3:00　Yassine Essaadi & Miwa Essaadi (Shizuoka Muslim Association) × Kenei Sato (Japanese & English)

©Rick Rocamora WEBSITE for Muslim Americans
Rick Rocamora is an Oakland, California based award-winning documentary photographer whose lifetime work focuses on issues about rights of immigrants and their contribution to America and civil liberties issues. In his native Philippines, his work focuses on issues of inequality and human rights.

©Kenei Sato
Kenei Sato is a Tokyo-based freelance photographer, who developed a strong interest in the relationship between minorities and their host societies when he experienced his own identity as Japanese becoming blurred while living in the United States to study photojournalism at the University of Minnesota. He conducts extensive interviews with his subjects to better understand them, which has led to the publication of the non-fiction book “Believing in Islam in Japan,” Bungeishunju (2015).

Leaflet

Organizers：
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) Group B01: Norms & Identity
Network for Education and Study on Asia (ASNET), The University of Tokyo

Co-organizers：
Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia (IASA) , The University of Tokyo
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 University of Tokyo)
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists: The Traditional Islam Trend and Sufism in the American Muslim Community (Project Leader, Kei Takahashi, Sophia University)

Special thanks to：
Masatsugu Nokubo (IASA)

Contact：
asnet＠asnet.u-tokyo.ac.jp　(replace ＠ with @）