Liu Farrer

The Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) at the University of Birmingham, in partnership with the Institute of Asian Migrations (IAM), Waseda University, have been awarded funding from the Japan Foundation to hold an international symposium as part of the research project ‘Old and new diversifications in Japan and the UK’. 

This is the first substantive collaboration between Japan and the UK around superdiversity and migration and builds on the emergent relationship between the two important institutes. 

The three-day symposium, to be held in December 2019, will bring academics from the UK and Japan together to develop new knowledge and insight about diversification and integration resulting from old and new migrations.  Using a combination of keynote lecture, plenary, workshop and masterclasses intended to share existing knowledge and develop new ways of thinking we will explore a number of key questions including: ‘How are diversities being governed, made and re-made?’ and ‘In what ways can scholars from Japan and the UK work together to develop a research agenda around superdiversity’.

Outcomes of the event will comprise of building new networks between Japanese and UK migration and superdiversity scholars, and creating a journal special issue comparing superdiversities, and responses to superdiversities, in Japan and the UK.  IRiS Director, Professor Jenny Phillimore commented ‘The symposium will be of global importance in their bringing the first Asian perspectives on superdiversity, offering potential to shift west-centric thinking, developing new theoretical insight and aiding the design of policy and practice in Japan and the UK.’