Professor Shinji Yamashita will join the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies during the fall and winter quarters of the 2014–15 academic year, as the ninth Terasaki Chair in U.S.-Japan Relations. The rotating chair brings to campus experts in the field of Japanese studies and U.S.-Japan relations, including, in recent years, Professor Hiroko Hara from Josai International University, UCSD Professor Stefan Tanaka, Tokyo University Professor of Law Daniel Foote, Kanagawa University historian of science Shigeru Nakayama, and University of Pittsburgh literary, theater and arts scholar Thomas Rimer.

Professor Shinji Yamashita is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Human Security Program at the University of Tokyo and a former president of the Japanese Society of Ethnology (currently Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology). His research focuses on the dynamics of culture in the process of globalization with a special reference to international tourism and transnational migration. His regional concern is with Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan. His books include Globalization in Southeast Asia: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives (co-ed. with J.S. Eades, Berghahn Books, 2003), Bali and Beyond: Explorations in the Anthropology of Tourism (translated by J.S. Eades, Berghahn Books, 2003), The Making of Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia (co-ed. with Joseph Bosco and Jerry S. Eades, Berghahn Books, 2004), Transnational Migration in East Asia: Japan in a Comparative Focus (co-ed. with Makito Minami, David W. Haines and Jerry S. Eades, Senri Ethnological Reports 77, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, 2008), Kanko Jinruigaku no Chosen [The Challenge of the Anthropology of Tourism] (Kodansha, 2009), and Wind over Water: Migration in an East Asian Context (co-ed. with David W. Haines and Keiko Yamanaka, Berghahn Books, 2012).

Professor Yamashita is teaching a Graduate Course: Living in the “New Globe”: The Anthropology of Transnational Human and Cultural Mobility in Japan and Beyond during fall quarter and will be teaching another course this winter for the International Institute’s East Asian Studies 291A/I A Std 191.

Fall Course Description (Anthro 130: Anthropology of Tourism)

Living in the “New Globe”: The Anthropology of Transnational Human and Cultural Mobility in Japan and Beyond 

In the book Worlds in Motion, Douglas Massey and his colleagues noted that by the 1980s, international migration had spread into Asia. By 2000, it was estimated that approximately 15 million transnational migrants had spread out from East Asia. Even in Japan, where migrant control is rather tight, by 2013, registered foreign residents numbered over 2 million people, which accounts for 1.7 percent of the total population. The stereotypical image of mono-cultural Japan is now being changed into “multicultural Japan.” Japan is in motion as well in the “new globe,” or what Arjun Appadurai has called “global ethnoscapes,” in which rhizome-like transnational human and cultural networks form a key structure across bounded nation-states. Against this background of accelerated human and cultural mobility of worlds in motion, the course examines transnational migration, international tourism, and multiculturalism in Japan and beyond. Using the partial English translation articles from my book chapters written in Japanese (Yamashita 2009a), the course will be run in a seminar format. Following a lecture based on the article concerned, participants are expected to discuss the lecture topic given at each course session. At the end of the term we will have “Term Paper Oral Presentation Session” which discusses the lecture theme of “Living in the New Globe” from each participant’s point of view. 

Please join us in welcoming Professor Yamashita to UCLA and the Terasaki Center!

Download file: Yamashita-CV-2012-2f-htq.pdf

Published: Wednesday, October 1, 2014