Dr Hiroko Takeda

Director of Research (Social Change and Transition in East Asia cluster)

2002 PhD (Japanese Studies), Sheffield; 1993 MA (Politics), Rikkyo/Tokyo; 1991 BA (Law and Politics), Rikkyo/Tokyo.

Email	h.takeda@wreac.org
Telephone	+44 (0)114 222 8439

Post/Affiliation (click for detailed profile)	Lecturer, The University of Sheffield.

Profile

Dr Takeda lectures on contemporary gender issues in Japan and East Asia. She specialises in political sociology and gender studies, and her research interests include gender and politics/political economy in Japan and East Asia, political and social theories, biopolitics and governance, political discourse analysis and the political functions of risk discourses. Her major publications include, The Political Economy of Reproduction: Between Nation-State and Everyday Life, London: RoutledgeCurzon 2005; and '"Self-responsibility" and the Nature of the Japanese State: Risk through the Looking Glass', the Journal of Japanese Studies, 33 (1), 2007.

Current research

My research interests can be mapped around the intersection of political sociology and gender studies. Political sociology is my disciplinary background, providing the methodological/theoretical foundation as well as a source of academic interest. In particular, I have received a great deal of inspiration from the studies of ‘governmentality' rooted in Michel Foucault's work and the sociology of knowledge. I have a long-term interest in gender issues and have been working on such topics as reproduction, the family, women's political participation and citizenship, women's roles in the national economic system and hegemonic masculinity in Japan.

More specifically, I am currently working on the following projects.

1. The discourse analysis of ‘a changing Japan' since the 1990s

This is a project initiated by examining governmental policies of structural reform during the era of the Koizumi administration that were posited as responses to the changes in the global/national economic structure. I am now extending the scope of this analysis to include different policies implemented in the areas of international relations and society.

2. Boundaries of the postwar Japan

This is a three-year project to explore the ‘postwar' in Japan-as a substantiated, temporally, geographically and epistemologically bounded entity.

3. Risk and the form/mode of governing

Based on the growing discussion on risk in social sciences, this project analyzes how the conduct of governing by the national government has changed through the reconfiguration of perceptions/interpretations of various ‘risks'.

4. Changing families, changing food

A university-wide project funded by the the Leverhulme Trust's 'Changing Families, Changing Food' programme (c. £1.2m) to analyze changes of families through the lens of foods. My role is to investigate the Japanese case (₤6000).

5. The boundaries of Japanese Studies

This is a three-year international collaboration project with the University of Leeds, Leiden and Munich, funded by the Japan Foundation. The aim of the project is to examine the present state of different fields in Japanese studies. The role of Sheffield in the project is to examine the area of politics and international relations.

Research supervision

I currently supervise the following three PhD projects:

1. Risk and security policy in postwar Japan.
2. Women in new religious groups in Japan.
3. The politics of war memories and grassroots civil organizations in Japan.

I would welcome opportunities to supervise PhD students who are interested in working in the areas of gender, Japanese politics/political economy, the studies of risk and political discourse analysis.

Selected publications

Books

The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan: Between Nation-State and Everyday Life, RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Journal articles

'Talking about Japanese Families: the Discursive Politics of the Familial', Japan Forum, 15 (3), 2003: 451-64.

'Igirisu seiji shisutemu no jendāka: "sonzai" to seijiteki ryōiki no shitsuteki henka', (Gendering the British Political System: the Politics of "Presence" and the Qualitative Transition of the Political Sphere), the International Society for Gender Studies Journal (in Japan), 2: 97-128.

'"Sengo" o kataru gensetsu to mukiaukoto', (Facing the Discourse of the Postwar), Rekishigaku Kenkyū, No. 818, 2006, pp. 35-8.

'Gendering the Japanese Political System: the Gender-Specific Pattern of Political Activity and Women's Political Participation', Japanese Studies, 26 (2), 2006: 186-98.

'"Self-responsibility" and the Nature of the Japanese State: Risk through the Looking Glass', the Journal of Japanese Studies, 33 (1), 2007: 93-123 (co-authored with Glenn D. Hook).

'Delicious Food in a Beautiful Country: Nationhood and Nationalism in Discourses on Food in Contemporary Japan', SEN: Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 8 (1), 2008: 5-29.

'Structural Reform of the Family and the Neoliberalisation of Everyday Life in Japan', New Political Economy, 13 (2), 2008: 153-72.

'The Politics of Political Knowledge: Exploring the Boundaries of Academic Inquiry into Japanese Politics in the Early Postwar Period', Social Science Japan Journal, 11 (1), 2008: 49-68 (co-authored with Glenn D. Hook).

'The Political Economy of Familial Relations: The Japanese State and Families in a Changing Political Economy', the Asian Journal of Political Science, 16 (2), 2008: 196-214.

'Tipping Points: the State Governing of Energy and Food Risks', Rikkyo Keizaigaku Kenkyþ, 62 (2), forthcoming in September 2008 (co-authored with Andrew DeWit).

Book chapters

'Governance through the Family in Japan: Governing the Domestic', in Glenn D. Hook (ed.) Contested Governance in Japan, RoutledgeCurzon, 2005: 233-48.

'Gendering the Japanese Political System: the Gender Specific Pattern of Political Activity and Women's Political Participation', in Christopher P. Hood (ed.) Politics of Modern Japan, London: Routledge, 2008 (Reprint).

'Shinmitsu sei no henyō', in Akio Igarashi, Kitayama Seiichi and Carol Gluck (eds) Bōsō suru
kokka, taikōsuru shimin shakai, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, forthcoming.