The UBRJ team consisting of Dr. Naomi Chi (Graduate School of Public Policy, Hokkaido Univ.), together with Dr. Hyein Han (Sunkyunkwan Univ.), Dr. Kyunghee Cho (Sungonghoe Univ.) and Dr. Bong Lee (Hokkaido Univ.) presented their work at work the 3rd AAS Conference in Asia held on June 22-24, 2015 at the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. Dr. Chi organized a panel titled, "For Whom the Bell Tolls?: Migration, Diaspora and Border Crossing Phenomena in East Asia" to explore the practices, discourses and experiences of migration and diasporas, or the border-crossing and mobility of people, which are an integral part of the history of modern East Asia.
The panel dealt with various issues of migration and border crossing phenomena such as undocumented migration, stowaway and repatriation in East Asia from a trans-disciplinary perspective. The objectives of the panel were threefold: (1) to examine the various ways in which ethnic and national identities of migrants are defined, institutionalized, and reproduced, (2) to shed light on the "untold" tales of migration in East Asia and how that has affected the complex trans-bordered sphere of life of both Koreans and Japanese after 1945, and lastly (3) to explore ways to reconceptualise "migration" in East Asia through the various case studies. All the papers told the tale of people that have crossed and re-crossed the physical borders between Japan and Korea and demonstrated that migration or the movement of people between these borders is not a simple tale, but rather an intricate web of intersecting identities and borders.
（written by Naomi CHI）
Eurasia Unit for Border Research (Japan)
