European Association for Japanese Studies
ヨーロッパ日本研究協会

Prof. Dr. David CHIAVACCI

It is a great honor for me to have been nominated as a candidate for the EAJS council. Besides being a member of the EAJS and participant in its conferences for two decades, I had already opportunities to contribute to the EAJS as section organizer in its international conferences (2011 and 2014) as well as organizer of a PhD workshop (2014). I could also gain ample experience in the management of research associations as board member (2009-2016) and president (2013-2016) of the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan, as board member of the Swiss Society of Asian Studies (since 2010) as well as speaker of the Academic Advisory Council for Japan and Korea of the German Association for Asian Studies (since 2015). As a research association of its size, the EAJS has a remarkable number of well-established and well-run activities and events. It has to be the main task of the next EAJS council to maintain and foster this program.

Moreover, I would like to contribute to the enhancement of the EAJS in two fields: (1) opening avenues for networking and cooperation of EAJS members with scholars working on East Asia beyond Japan; (2) establishing opportunities for young Japan scholars to strengthen their methodological expertise. Possibilities to achieve these two goals with the available resources could for example be to include some special panels at the international EAJS conference on Japan in a comparative East Asian perspective or to organize smaller method workshops in a subfield of Japanese Studies (for example literature or politics). This would allow the Japan research community to build stronger links with other scholars on East Asia and to establish pan-European networks among young scholars working in the same subfield.

Curriculum Vitae

David Chiavacci is Professor in Social Science of Japan (since 2010) and Director of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies (since 2019) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He obtained his PhD in sociology in 2001 in Zurich. After postdoc positions at the University of Tokyo (2001-2003) and the University of Zurich (2003-2005), he joined the Free University Berlin as a research fellow (2005-2010) where he also received his venia legendi in Japanese Studies (2009). He was a visiting scholar at the German Institute for Japanese Studies, Japan Institute of Labour Policy and Training, University of Naples “L’Orientale”, University of Tokyo, and Waseda University. His main research interests are Japan’s immigration and immigration policy, frames and narratives of social

 

List of selected publications

Chiavacci, David; Grano, Simona; Obinger, Julia (eds.). 2020. Civil Society and the State in Democratic East Asia: Between Entanglement and Contention in Post High Growth. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Chiavacci, David. 2020. “New Immigration, Civic Activism and Identity in Japan: Influencing the ‘Strong’ State.” Civil Society and the State in Democratic East Asia: Between Entanglement and Contention in Post High Growth. David Chiavacci; Simona Grano; Julia Obinger (eds.). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 187-215.

Chiavacci, David; Obinger, Julia (eds.). 2018. Re-emerging from Invisibility: Social Movements and Political Activism in Contemporary Japan. London: Routledge.

Chiavacci, David; Lechevalier, Sébastien (eds.). 2017. “Special Issue: Japanese Political Economy Revisited: Abenomics and Institutional Change.” Japan Forum, 29 (3): 299-422.

Chiavacci, David; Hommerich, Carola (eds.). 2017. Social Inequality in Post-Growth Japan: Transformation during Economic and Demographic Stagnation. London: Routledge.