I am a lecturer (assistant professor) in Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester. 

My broad research interests are cultural and political sociology of social inequality, focusing on Japan and South Korea. I am the author of the forthcoming book Meritocracy’s Children: How Inequality Leaves Young Adults Angry or Resigned in Seoul and Tokyo (University of California Press, March 2027) and co-editor (with Naoto Higuchi) of The Digital Rise of the Far-Right in Japan (Manchester University Press, October 2026). 

I earned my Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in 2019. I spent a year at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University as a postdoctoral fellow and four years at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea, as an assistant and associate professor before joining Manchester. I currently hold visiting positions at Osaka Metropolitan University and Waseda University in Japan.

​Click here for my CV!

​You can reach me at yuki.asahina[at]manchester.ac.uk