Friday 23 February
13:00-14:00 GMT
QUEENS 1.03 Lecture Theatre (UEA) and online via Zoom
Join us for this special hybrid edition of our research seminar series in collaboration with POW! (Politics on Wednesday) in the School of Politics at UEA.
If you would like to attend in-person, please select the ‘In-person’ option in the Zoom registration form. Please note that all registrants will receive a confirmation email from Zoom and a link to the talk.
About the Talk
This talk will focus on refugee regimes in two East Asian countries, Japan and Taiwan. Taiwan does not have a refugee law, is not a signatory to the major international treaties, the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and deals with refugees and asylum seekers on an ad-hoc basis with rather inconsistent outcomes. Japan signed both Convention and Protocol and has been a major contributor to the UNHCR for decades; however, the country has often been accused of a “chequebook diplomacy” and criticised for its extremely low refugee recognition rate and detention of asylum seekers. The talk will examine how these refugee regimes relate to the ideas of national security that tend to shape refugee policies in the region and discuss their implications for human security of refugees and asylum seekers.
The presentation is based on a forthcoming book titled Refugees and asylum seekers in East Asia: Perspectives from Japan and Taiwan by L. Momesso & P. Ivanova (Eds.) consisting of 15 chapters and comprising three parts: 1) legal and policy frameworks, 2) media representation and public opinion, and 3) lived experiences of refugees and asylum seekers.
About the Speaker
Polina Ivanova is Senior Researcher at the Asia-Japan Research Institute of Ritsumeikan University, Japan. She holds a PhD in International Relations from Ritsumeikan University. Her research interests lie in the areas of migration and migrant integration, including international students, refugees and asylum seekers and highly-skilled migrants. Her recent book is Civil society and international students in Japan: The making of social capital (Routledge, 2023) and her current project is Refugees and asylum seekers in East Asia: Perspectives from Japan and Taiwan, co-edited with Dr Lara Momesso (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024).
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