Japanese experts in anthropology analyse the (post)covid era at the UAB

The Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS) is an international academic association made up of specialists in Japanese anthropology. Its 31st conference, held at the UAB, brought together some 70 anthropologists from Europe, Canada, USA, Australia, Singapore and Japan. Over fifty panels covering a variety of subjects were presented: multiculturalism in Japanese society; mass media imagery; institutional speeches and critical political orders; civil society and digital activism; animals, robots and health aid; genetics, humans and technology; places, positions and social identity; affection and cultural practice; family life and emotions throughout the years; the representation of the Ainu ethnicity; and rural Japan in the (post)covid era.

The inaugural conference took place at the UAB Casa Convalescència in Barcelona and was given by Roger Goodman, Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies and Warden of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Goodman is author of books fundamental for the understanding of Japanese society and was Head of Oxford's Social Sciences Division and is now President of the Academy of Social Sciences. In his conference, he reflected on the anthropology of resilience in the study of the social and political complexity characterising modern Japan.

The conference also included an ethnographic laboratory and the projection of several ethnographic films, with the presence of their directors, at the UAB Cinema Hall. Despite all conferences being face-to-face, two online sessions were also programmed with the aim of discovering the PhD theses being conducted at Japanese universities in Kobe, Osaka and Ritsumeikan, at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, at the UAB, and at other universities.

Specialists from Japan and Around the Globe

The conference brought together specialists from the main universities offering Japanes studies, including those in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sophia, Ritsumeikan, Hokudai, Kansai Gaidai, Kanagawa, the German Institute for Japanese Studies, and many more) and in the rest of the world (Oxford, Cambridge, SOAS University of London, London School of Economics and Political Science, Harvard, UC San Diego & UC Santa Barbara, Leiden, Viena, Max Planck, Freie Universität Berlin, Melbourne, British Columbia, the UAB, etc.).

The conference was organised by the UAB's GREGAL Research Group: Japan-Korea-Catalonia/Spain Cultural Circulation (2017 SGR 1596 GRE), which studies the circulation of cultural and language industries affecting and transforming social realities in globalising processes, and by the UAB's Centre for East Asian Studies and Research (CERAO). At the same time it received the support of the UAB Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, the only Catalan university centre to offer Japanese studies, and from the Japan Foundation, Japan's cultural diplomacy institution.