​This project seeks to understand why we experience inequality and insecurity in the ways we do at different times and places. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic research and interviews with 98 young adults, this research shows how different pace of institutional changes shape subjective impacts using a lens of comparison. 

Published works: 

2019. “Precarious Regular Jobs in Japan” Japan Forum (Online first) — Link to the paper
  • 2018-2019 Graduate Student Best Paper Award, Department of Sociology, UHM

In progress: 

​Hope and Reality: Coming of Age in Times of Inequality in Japan and South Korea — book manuscript in preparation

“Reluctant-Commitment or Practical-Adjustment?: Commitment to Competition for Elite Universities in East Asia" — Under review; draft available upon request

(With Dr. Myungji Yang) “Pace of Institutional Changes and the Sense of Injustice among Millennials in South Korea and Japan ”— Under review; draft available upon request

(With Wonjeong Jeong) “Intergenerational Differences in the Support of More Rigorous Tax Policies”
 
l am also working on another project about democracy and right-wing politics in Japan, a topic I have been continuously researching since 2011. By examining the structural conditions and political actors’ responses to them in shaping a particular political trajectory, this project will shed light on another history of post-recession Japanese society.

Published works: 
​
2020. (with Dr. Naoto Higuchi) “The Third Round of Immigrant Incorporation in East Asia: An Introduction to Special Issue Friends and Foes of Multicultural East Asia.” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia. 19 (2): 1-19. — Link to the paper

2020. (Guest editor with Dr. Naoto Higuchi) “Friends and Foes of Multiculturalism in East Asia” Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia. 19 (2) Link to the journal

2019. “Becoming Right-Wing Citizens in Contemporary Japan.” Contemporary Japan, 31 (2): 122-140. — Link to the paper
  • 2020 Contemporary Japan Best Paper Award

In progress: 

 “New Right-Wing Movement as Alternative Politics: Why Did They Achieve Success?” in Alternative Politics in Japan edited by D. Slater and P. Steinhoff. 
  • 2016 Seidensticker Award for Best Japan Paper, SPAS Graduate Student Conference, UHM
          
(With Dr. Sharon Yoon) “The Rise and Fall of Japan’s New Far-Right:
How Anti-Korean Discourses Went Mainstream”— Under review; draft available upon request

(With Dr. Myungji Yang) “Coalition between perpetrator and victim: Transnational connections between the Japanese and South Korean right-wing intellectuals”