Dear SSJ-Forum Members,

The Waseda Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies and the Waseda Institute of Asian Migrations would like to invite you to our upcoming events in November and December.

1) Rethinking the 'Ethnocentric Firm': Place of Education and Attainment Among White-Collar Migrants to Japan - Hilary J. Holbrow (Assistant Professor of Japanese Politics and Society at Indiana University) 

November 28 (Tuesday) - 17:00-18:30, in-person at Waseda University

Scholars contend that Japanese firms hold white-collar foreign workers to a far higher bar for assimilation than do employers in other countries. This model of the ethnocentric firm suggests that the growing number of foreign-educated white-collar migrants in Japan should face steep labor market penalties, compared to migrants educated in Japan, because they have had fewer opportunities to familiarize themselves with Japanese working styles and norms. We test this hypothesis using a sample of 546 Asian white-collar foreign workers. However, we find that, robust to controls for compositional differences in the foreign- and Japan-educated migrant populations, foreign-educated migrants earn more. Since penalties for foreign degrees are ubiquitous in other national contexts, this finding counterintuitively implies that, at least in evaluation and rewards, Japanese firms may be less ethnocentric than the global norm.

 

More information and registration HERE

2) Between global sex work and human trafficking: migrants' resources for a safer journey in Japan and France - Hélène Le Bail (French National Research Center and Sciences Po Paris-CERI)

December 1 (Friday) - 17:00-18:30, in-person at Waseda University

The communication will present first results of a collaborative research project on cross-border migration involving sex trade. It concerns both migrant sex work and trafficking in persons into the sex industry, with a critical view that it is necessary to break the dichotomy between sex work based on self-determination and victims of trafficking as part of an organized crime. The starting point of the research was not to argument about prohibiting (or not) migration into sex trade, but to document conditions and resources that would make these migrants' journeys safer.

The presentation proposes a French-Japan comparison. It explores socio-legal settings and relational networks of the migrants in the sex trade. It analyses how state funded anti-trafficking or community health NPO/NGOs, the police, the third persons (agents, intermediaries, etc), the sex work or ethnic communities, etc., can be resources to limit situation of exploitation.

 

More information and registration HERE

Registration is required for the events.

 

We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Best regards,

 

The Waseda Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies

The Waseda Institute of Asian Migrations