With advancements in communication technologies and internet connectivity, avatar robots for children who cannot attend school in person due to illness or disabilities have become more widespread. Introducing these technologies to the classroom aims to offer possibilities of social and educational inclusion. While implementation is still at an experimental level, several of these avatars have already been introduced as a marketable service. However, various obstacles impede widespread acceptance.  In the open access research article “Staying connected: implementing avatar robots at schools in Germany and Japan”, DIJ’s Celia Spoden and Arisa Ema (University of Tokyo) identify structural similarities and differences in both countries. Their study, published in Frontiers in Digital Health, suggests that avatar technologies bear high potential for children to stay socially and educationally connected.

Japan has been considered a role-model for the successful pursuit of ‘progress’ or national development in Siam/Thailand since the late 19th century. As Senior Research Fellow David M. Malitz shows, the Japanese exemplar played a significant role in Siamese/Thai political discourse, with three of the kingdom’s most important conservative thinkers writing in detail about Japanese history. They interpret Japanese battlefield and economic successes as the outcome of the national character of the Japanese. The message of these works is that to pursue national ‘progress’, the Siamese/Thai need to be more like the stereotypical Japanese, and become more disciplined, and patriotic, as well as cooperating for the national good rather than pursuing particular interests. “Japan for Example – National Character as the Driving Force of National Progress in Thai Conservative Writings about Japan” (Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 26(1), 1-15) is available open access here

How can local stakeholders activate the local community to prevent regional care systems from collapsing? Through the lens of challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this study by DIJ political scientist Sebastian Polak-Rottmann and DIJ alumnus Hanno Jentzsch (Leiden University) reveals the strengths and weaknesses of community-based regional welfare-making in Aso (Kumamoto Prefecture). Their data demonstrates that in the Aso region longstanding social ties, trust, and mutual support constitute the normative underpinning and the concrete social foundation for preventive old age care, based on routine cooperation between communities, volunteers, and social welfare councils. However, as the pandemic hindered social exchange and amplified processes of community decline, it further challenges local communities to realize the vision of a healthy “aging in place” based on mutual support. The paper “Community-Based Care During COVID-19: Balancing Social Distancing and Social Care in Rural Japan – The Case of the Aso Region” (Asia-Pacific Journal. Japan Focus, March 2024) is available open access here.

We have just published a new issue of Contemporary Japan (vol. 36, no. 1), containing a special section curated by DIJ alumna Barbara Geilhorn on “Art and Regional Revitalization – Case Studies from Japan”. It features four research articles by Eimi Tagore, Carolin Funck & Meng Qu, Anemone Platz, and Peter Eckersall & Tom Looser that assess how art festivals, exhibitions, and theatre in rural communities can “create new types of social, cultural and economic capital”. The issue also contains research articles on motherhood discourses and political activism (Rosemary Soliman Dawood), women and organized crime in popular culture (Erik Ropers), and conscription insurance in pre-war Japan (YingYing Jiang). CJ’s first “Current Topic Commentary” article by Igor Prusa analyses the media rituals surrounding the Johnny & Associates sex abuse scandal. The book review section covers Japan’s nationalist right, a cultural analysis of Japan’s national character, immigration, and prison chaplaincy. Please see the full issue here