Events by year: 2025

24 March 2025

Foreign Migrant Workers in Japanese Agriculture - Stakeholders' Views

Japan faces serious labour shortages in many sectors as a result of its ageing society and rapid population decline. In a notable change of approach, given its post-war history of refusing low-skilled migrant labour, Japan is now cautiously opening the door to migrant workers. In 2019, under the Abe administration, the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was revised to allow bona-fide workers to enter on the newly created Specified Skilled Worker programme. In this seminar, Dr Roberts discussed the new short-term labour schemes, highlighting stakeholders’ viewpoints based on empirical research.

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13 March 2025

Media in Japan: The Fuji TV Scandal

Fuji TV, one of Japan’s largest broadcasters, is currently in crisis. High-profile companies have pulled advertising from the network, which has been criticised for trying to cover up sexual misconduct allegations against one of its former star presenters. The Fuji scandal has revived the discussion about whether corporate governance in Japan’s media industry lacks awareness of human rights and gender equality. In this webinar, moderated by Mariko Oi of BBC News, the panellists explored the fundamental issues behind the scandal, including human rights, governance, gender inequality and the working environment in Japan. They also discussed what can be done to address these issues in the media industry.

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6 March 2025

Okinawa: Great Power Competition and the Keystone of the Pacific

Okinawa is a tiny island of huge geopolitical importance. Located between the tip of Japan’s mainland and Taiwan, it hosts key US military bases, which have played a contested and controversial role on the island. In addition, the sovereignty of some of Okinawa’s outlying territory is disputed by China and its future is tied closely to the competing strategies over Taiwan. It is also a potential target for North Korean missiles aimed at American military assets on the islands. In discussion of this compact and revealing book, Ra Mason explored why and how this island paradise and the waters around it could trigger great power conflict.

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5 March 2025

Tango in Japan: Cosmopolitanism Beyond the West

Why do Japanese people love tango? Starting with this question, which the author, Dr Yuiko Asaba, frequently received while working as a tango violinist in Argentina, “Tango in Japan: Cosmopolitanism Beyond the West” reveals tango’s history in Japan dating back to the 1910s and its vibrant contemporary dynamics, embedded in the modern transformations of Japan and Argentina. While initially brought to Yokohama by North American tango dancers, tango’s immediate popularity in Japan quickly compelled many Japanese performers and writers to travel to Argentina in search of tango’s “origin” beginning in the 1920s. The first comprehensive work on the Japan-Argentina musical relationship, this book illuminates how Japanese musicians, dancers, aficionados, and the wider public have approached, and continue to engage with, tango as an important vehicle of expression, entertainment, and academic pursuit that take their imaginations beyond the West.

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4 March 2025

Sayuri Ichida in conversation with
Fiona Rogers

To mark the closing of the exhibition ‘transiənt (“transient”)’ by Sayuri Ichida at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, we are delighted to host an artist talk, ‘Sayuri Ichida in conversation with Fiona Rogers’. In this event, Ichida will introduce her works, particularly highlighting key aspects of her production, such as her early life, artistic motivations, and long-lasting relationship with photography across Tokyo, New York, London, and Margate. A discussion moderated by Fiona Rogers will follow the presentation, framing her practice in a broader context, including the two series featured in the exhibition: ‘Absentee’ (2020-2021) and ‘Ctrl Shift + J’ (2023-), through which she explored the ephemeral nature of life and existence.

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27 February 2025

平野丸の悲劇とウェールズの善意の人々

平野丸（日本郵船）は、三菱の長崎造船所で建造され、1908年に日本とロンドンを結ぶ欧州定期航路に就航しました。1914年に第一次大戦が勃発し、日本が連合国陣営で参戦すると、日本の商船もドイツ帝国海軍の潜水艦（Uボート）による攻撃対象となり、1918年、英国リバプールから横浜に向かっていた平野丸は、英国のウェールズ沖で、ドイツの潜水艦（Uボート）に撃沈され沈没しました。乗客と乗組員計240人のうち210人が死亡しました。ウェールズの沿岸に流れ着いた多くの遺体は、地元の住民により引き上げられ、手厚く葬られました。沈没から１００年後、ウェールズの善意の人々は過去を忘れず、遠い日本の犠牲者を弔おうと立ち上がり、新たな慰霊碑を建立しました。本ウェビナーでは、島崎淳氏が平野丸の悲劇と乗客らの群像、第一次世界大戦と日本のかかわり、ウェールズ住民の善意ある行動など、両国での調査や取材を通して見えてきたことについて語ります。

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29 January 2025

British Children’s Literature in Japanese Culture

Whether watching Studio Ghibli adaptations of British children’s books, visiting Harry Potter sites in Britain or eating at Alice in Wonderland-themed restaurants in Tokyo, the Japanese have a close and multifaceted relationship with British children’s literature. In British Children’s Literature in Japanese Culture, the first comprehensive study to explore this engagement, Catherine Butler considers its many manifestations in print, on the screen, in tourist locations and throughout Japanese popular culture.

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28 January 2025

Private View: transiənt by Sayuri Ichida

Join us for a private view of Sayuri Ichida’s first solo exhibition in the UK, transiənt (‘transient’) at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. This event will offer a first opportunity to explore selected works from Ichida’s two photography series, ‘Absentee’ (2020-2021) and ‘Ctrl Shift + J’ (2023-). Drawing from personal experiences of loss, grief, and life abroad, Ichida’s works explore the ephemeral nature of life and existence. Through these series, she revisits and processes the past, reflecting on the complex ways we experience time – distortion, repetition, and regression – when memories intertwine with the present. Showcasing over 30 pieces, the exhibition invites viewers to immerse themselves in her delicately processed monochromatic images that integrate her emotional landscapes across multiple temporal dimensions. 

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23 January 2025

Okinawa’s Military Bases and the US–Japan Alliance

Okinawa has one of the heaviest concentrations of US military bases in the world. The relocation of the US Marine base to Henoko in northern Okinawa is framed by Japanese politicians and some analysts as crucial to “deterrence”. Critics, on the other hand, argue that deterrence is merely a pretext used by the central government in Tokyo to perpetuate a political agenda that discriminates against Okinawans. In this webinar moderated by Professor Heigo Sato, Dr Paul O’Shea will analyse the deterrence claims made by relocation proponents from the perspective of various factors including the capabilities of the US marines and their credibility, and the potential impact on the long-term resiliency of the US–Japan alliance.　

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1 January 2025

War and Peace

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII. Many of the tragedies witnessed during the war, including the trauma of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, as well as the Holocaust in Europe, had devastating consequences that shaped the fate of humanity during the 20th century. 80 years later, we are again living in critical times that may shape the future of humanity in years to come. If humanity is unable to remember the past, we may be condemned to repeat it. Our annual seminar series will focus on the topic of “War and Peace” in its different forms.

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