Europe Japan Research Centre

This project that started in September 2001 brought to Brookes a team of Japanese researchers headed by Professor Hirochika Nakamaki, of the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku), Osaka, to make a comparison of management culture in England and Japan, with special reference to religion and museums. Visits were made to Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham and Sheffield. Further visits were made in 2002, and the final conference in September 2003. Publications from the conference include H. Nakamaki, ed., A Comparison of Management Culture in Japan and the UK. Research report, Japanese National Museum of Ethnology. March 2004. Find out more…

The conference aimed to be a critical, interdisciplinary evaluation of negative western perceptions of copying in Japan and of Japanese theories that emphasise the positive, cultural value of imitation.The volume which is based on the conference was published by Routledge (2007) as:

• The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives Rupert Cox, Editor.
  ( read more )

In progress

• Sebastien Boret: New Buddhist “natural” funerals in Japan
• Paola Esposito:Butoh and the West: A Performative Ethnographic Analysis of the Spread of Butoh-dance outside of Japan
• Anna Fraser: Medical properties of hot springs in Japan
• Maya Gelbtuch: The Student Experience in Japanese Higher Education
• Yutaka Kanomata: The Japanese Imperial System in the context of anthropological theory about Divine Kingship
• Leonor Leiria: Material exchanges between Japan and Europe in the 16th century
• Katsunobu Shimizu on problems of school refusal in Japan

Completed

• Ayumi Sasagawa: The way highly educated mothers in Japan give up their work on childbirth. She was awarded her PhD in September 2002
• Douglas Frewer: Japanese Stamps. Awarded in September 2004
• Ruth Martin: The role of Japanese housewives in the UK. Awarded in September 2004
• Bruce White: Generational change in social and cultural identity among Japanese in Kyushu
• Phil Sawkins: (not) only connect – investigating the place of the mobile phone in Japanese lives

The Organisation for Intra-Cultural Development (OICD), a non-profit organisation for applied anthropological research, draws on EJRC research and is directed by Dr Bruce White. Bruce also heads Emic Intercultural Works Ltd, an intercultural consultancy and service provider, which advised the popular HSBC ‘local knowledge’ campaign.