"German Association for Social Science Research on Japan"

Membership and Goals

V-S-J-F are the initials for "Vereinigung fuer sozialwissenschaftliche Japanforschung". In English, the association is called "German Association for Social Science Research on Japan".

The Association was founded in 1988. Its general aim was and still is to strengthen the study of contemporary Japan in the German-speaking countries, namely Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. The Association is conceived as a forum for researchers and students from the fields of Japanese studies as well as from social sciences, including cultural studies.

The Association is open to anyone interested in the study of Japanese society. Since its founding, membership has continually grown to about 200, making the Association one of the largest in Europe in the field of Japanese Studies.

The Association perceives itself as a genuinely interdisciplinary endeavor, with issues of contemporary Japan as its thematical focus. Some of the founding members have in the meantime been appointed to chairs for Japanese Studies at German universities. Overall, the attention given to contemporary issues in Japanese Studies in the German-speaking countries has markedly improved. The Association continues to provide stimuli in maintaining this trend.

A lot remains to be done, however, in increasing the impact of the available knowledge about Japan on mainstream debates in the field of social sciences in German-speaking countries. This is not simply a matter of reproducing existing frameworks, while supplementing them with additional empirical (Japanese) data. The task also encompasses efforts to chart new frameworks, even new fields of study. It involves transcending the current borderlines between social sciences, humanities, and area studies.

In trying to promote innovative venues of research, the Association is strongly committed to increasing international exchange among scholars of contemporary Japan. As a matter of policy, guest speakers from abroad are regularly invited to the Associations annual conferences, including in recent years Ronald Dore, T.J. Pempel, John Campbell, and Sugimoto Yoshio, among others. The Association also seeks to intensify contacts with Japanese scholars and to invite younger scholars from abroad.

Activities

Annual Conferences
Every year, the Association organizes a 2-3 day conference. Each conference is devoted to an overarching theme. The main program consists of a series of presentations highlighting the theme from various research perspectives.

The following list gives an overview of the themes chosen for VSJF annual conferences so far:

2010 Cultural Power Japan - Impact and Intellectual Dimension
2009 Risk and East Asia
2008 Demographic Change in Japan and the EU - Comparative Perspectives
2007 Security and Insecurity: New Challenges for Japan in the Beginning of the 21st Century
2006 Social Science Matters: Inquiries into the current state of social sciences in Japan
2005 Urban Spaces in Japan: The Social Scientific Study of Japan and the „Spatial Turn“
2004 Nature, Ecology, and Environment in Japan - Sustainable Development and Regionalization Gender Dynamics and Globalization: Comparative Perspectives on Japan and Asia
2003 Nature, Ecology, and the Environment in Japan - Sustainability and Regionalization
2002 Japan in the 1990s
2001 The Media in Japan
2000 Japan in Comparison - Perspectives on Comparing Japan
1999 Reforming Japan
1998 Ten Years of Japanese Studies in the Social Sciences - Trends and Perspectives
1997 The Culture of Learning in Japan
1996 Social Movements in Japan
1995 The Yen - Economic, Political, and Social Dimensions of a Currency
1994 Pax Nipponica? - 50 Years after the the Demise of the Japanese Empire
1993 The Lean State: State Activities and State Guidance in Japan
1992 The Internationalization of Japan - Economic and Social Dynamics
1991 Individualization in Japanese Society
1990 Harmony as a Core Value in Japan - Explanation or Mystification?
1989 Social Policy in Japan
1988 Eurocentrism in Research on Japan in the Social Sciences

Sections

Within the Association, the sections provide a forum for scholars with a common disciplinary approach. The sections organize part of the program of the annual conferences, and some of them also maintain mailing-lists of their own. Each section is represented by one or two speakers. Currently, sections are active in the fields of education, economics, cultural studies, media & popular culture, political science, sociology, and urban & regional studies.

Workshops

Workshops can be convened by any group of members who would like to study an issue together, particularly when it involves an interdisciplinary approach. So far, workshops have been held on "Time in Japan", "Magic, Religion, and Science", "The Cultural History of Modern Science in Japan". The workshop "Gender Studies on Japan" has been meeting annually since 1992. A workshop on "Small and Medium Enterprises in Japan" which met annually between 1995 and 1999, has been transformed into a workshop on "Institutions and Organizations in the Japanese Economy" (since 2000).

Newsletter

Twice a year, the Association publishes a newsletter (in German) of 60-100 pages for its members. It includes news from the Assciation and its members as well as information on activities in social science research on Japan around the globe. The newsletter is also being distributed over the internet.

Governance

The Association is headed by a president, a vice-president, and an executive board with an additional five members. The board is elected by the members of the Association for three years. It meets 3-4 times each year. General meetings of all members are held annually in conjunction with the annual conference. The Association is assisted by an advisory board with representatives from major organizations which are promoting Japanese Studies in Germany.

All executive, organizational, and editorial work is done by volunteers. Membership fees are EURO 40,- for full members, and EURO 20,- for students, members without employment, and corresponding members (those which do not permanently reside in a German-speaking country). The Association has been increasingly successful in soliciting financial support for conferences and publications from institutions such as the Japanese-German Center Berlin, the Japanese-German Association for Cultural Exchange, the Thyssen Foundation, the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, several universities and others.