Messeage from the Director of the Center of Migration Research
Migration is not a new phenomenon, but the promotion of human mobility on a global scale, such as the trade between the East and the West through the Silk Road, or the opening of the sea route to America by Europeans during the Age of Discovery, has created new values, technological innovation, and mutual understanding, as well as friction and conflict through the spread of culture and the activation of economic exchange.
During the Cold War, which marked the latter half of the 20th century, the international movement of people could be considered to have stagnated relatively. However, the development of aviation technology during this period made it possible to travel to remote areas more safely and in a significantly shorter time. Since the end of the Cold War, economic globalization has led to an unprecedented increase in the movement of people across national borders, and today it is estimated that 200-300 million people around the world live outside their countries of origin (including domestic migrants, nearly 1 billion people live outside their origins).
The contact, coexistence, fusion, and collision of mutually different values that accompany the movement of people have been and continue to be repeated incessantly. The Center will pursue and disseminate the results of interdisciplinary research on what mechanisms work in people and society in each of these aspects, and what is necessary to avoid collision and to achieve coexistence and fusion, in close cooperation with researchers within the university and in Japan and abroad.
Director, Center of Migration Research
Center's Aims and Principles
Since the project "Research on the Public Policies on Migration, Multiculturalization and Welfare for the Regeneration of Communities in European, Asian and Japanese Societies" was selected by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as a "Core-to-Core Program (A. Advanced Research Networks)" from FY2016 to FY2021, we have promoted research and built domestic and international research networks. As an extension of this project, "Establishment of a Sustainable Multicultural Society Based on the Normalization of International Migration" was adopted by the JSPS in October 2021 as part of the "Topic-Setting Program to Advance Cutting-Edge Humanities and Social Sciences Research (Co-creation of Academic Knowledge)." In this project, work on research issues has started related to migration that are developing globally through collaboration with the natural sciences, while keeping the humanities and social sciences at the core. The Center will play a role as a hub for this research project, deepen cooperation with other related projects, and support the dissemination of research results to society.
A Result of "Research on the Public Policies on Migration, Multiculturalization and Welfare for the Regeneration of Communities in European, Asian and Japanese Societies"
There is a natural limit to the number of single-discipline approaches that can be taken to solve the issues surrounding migration. In the fields of the humanities and social sciences, collaboration among sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, economics, linguistics, phonetics, psychology, education, history, literature, and area studies is essential. In collaboration with natural science fields, the scope of collaboration will be further expanded, while focusing on computer science and data science. While directly seeking the resolution of individual issues surrounding migration, this project pursues the meta-goal of creating new academic knowledge that will change the existing paradigm of the humanities and the social sciences through promoting research from multiple perspectives.