Eurasia Unit for Border Research (Japan)

The National Institutes for the Humanities "Northeast Asia Area Studies Project" which involves 5 institutions including the National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU), Center for Northeast Asian Studies of Tohoku University, Center for Far Eastern Studies of Toyama University, Institute for North East Asian Research (NEAR) of the University of Shimane Prefecture and the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center (SRC) of Hokkaido University. Within this project team, the SRC is responsible for the "international relations for the construction of inter-regional cooperation in Northeast Asia"

On May 28-29, the kick off conference titled "Challenges to the Northeast Asia Regional Studies" for the SRC project unit took place in cooperation with the NEAR at the University of Shimane Prefecture. The two day conference started off with the keynote speech by Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, Haruki Wada, titled "Prospects and Challenges to Northeast Asia Regional Studies". Professor Wada touched upon the positionality of the Northeast Asian region and touched upon how the region itself was constructed in history. The presentation looked at the obstacles that hinder further cooperation in this region which include the North Korean issue, rise of China and traditional bilateral security regimes. Furthermore, the unhealed scars of the past and other historical issues including the comfort women and reconciliation and territorial issues are issues that remain to be resolved. However, there is a glimmer of hope in which the countries of Northeast Asia could and should cooperate on, such as emergency response to natural and man-made disasters, environmental issues as well as economic institutions.

The keynote speech was followed by two commentaries by the Director of NEAR, Atsushi Inoue and SRC's very own Akihiro Iwashita. Atsushi Inoue touched upon the creation of modern space and identity in the Northeast Asian region and how that could be new perspective in approaching the region, and Akihiro Iwashita's posed a rather provocative comments on the possibility of a breakthrough within the Northeast Asian region through a bilateral security alliance between Japan and Korea.

In the discussion, issues such as strategic partnership, the fluidity within the Northeast Asian region, as well as the network of the Korean diaspora were brought up by members of the project unit. All of the issues raised by the project members pose as keywords and possible directions for the project at hand. The next project conference is scheduled to take place in Kokura in Kita-Kyushu in December. (Written by: Naomi Chi)

Border Regions in Transition 15 Conference
@Hamburg, Germany and Sonderburg, Denmark

The 15^th Border Regions in Transition (BRIT), "Cities, States and Borders: From the Local to the Global" took place in cooperation with the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Hamburg and the HafenCity University Hamburg. One of the objectives of the conference was to rethink the complicated relationships that bind cities and state borders, and promoted the unique opportunity to explore the collaborative or competitive strategies of this odd couple under the current circumstances of globalization.

UBRJ members including Akihiro Iwashita, David Wolff and Testuro Chida attended the conference, along with Yasunori Hanamatsu (Kyushu Univ.) and Takuo Iwata (Ritsumeikan Univ.) from Japan.

On the first day of the panel, Akihiro Iwashita presented at a panel titled, "Perspective on Japanese Cities and Border Politics" where he introduced the border tourism project between Wakkanai City, Japan and Sakhalin, Russia. David Wolff also participated in this panel and presented his work on the history of urban planning of Harbin, China as the "Paris of the East", while Yasunori Hanamatsu presented his work on the border tourism project between Tsushima, Japan and Pusan, South Korea.

On the second day, Testuro Chida presented his work on the disaster of the Aral Sea and how the various actors that represent the geographical scale of the Aral Sea are hindering the resolution of this serious environmental issue.

The conference invited Tony Payan (Rice Univ.), Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (Univ. of Victoria) and Beatrice Heissenberger (Univ. of Vienna) as keynote speakers of the conference.

On the third day as tradition has it, the participants crossed the physical border between Germany and Denmark and moved the venue to the Univ. of Southern Denmark, where participants enjoyed an excursion to the local communities at the border.

It was announced that BRIT 16 (2018) will be held in Nigeria at University of Ibadan (150km from Lagos) and participants will be crossing the Nigerian- Benin border, the first ever BRIT conference to take place in Africa.

Geoffrey C. Gunn's Review of

Akihiro Iwashita's Japan's Border Issues: Pitfalls and Prospects

Geoffrey C. Gunn's review of UBRJ member, Akihiro Iwashita's new book titled Japan's Border Issues: Pitfalls and Prospects (Routledge, 2015) has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Asia (2016). You can find the full text at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00472336.2016.1148189#.Vxm9Oo9OJ9A

Founding of the ABS Japan Chapter!

The Japan Chapter for Border Studies, which was established in Kyushu University in November 2015, was officially recognized by the Board of the Association of Borderlands Studies during the ABS annual conference which took place in Reno, Nevada on April 13-16, 2016.

The ABS Japan Chapter will consist of ABS members residing in Japan which will be a forum for border studies in Japan by supporting conferences, workshops and publications. The Chair and Executive Secretary of the Chapter is Naomi Chi (UBRJ member, Hokkaido University), and its officers are Fuminori Kawakubo (Chuo Gakuin University), Yasunori Hanamatsu and Edward Boyle (both Kyushu University). The secretariat of the ABS Japan Chapter will be located at the Center for Asia Pacific Future Studies (CAFS) at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan.

The ABS Japan Chapter is planning three events for this year, which include the Border Studies Summer School jointly held by the Graduate School of Public Policy and the Slavic Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University from July 25-29, 2016, border studies conference in the beginning of November which will take place in Tokyo, and the Border Studies Spring School which will be held by CAFS at Kyushu University in February 2017.