Sexual Diversity and Human Rights in 21st Century Japan: LGBTIQ Activisms and Resistance from a Transnational Perspective

• Applicant: Kazuyoshi Kawasaka, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 446477950

This project investigates the emergence of transnational LGBTIQ rights movements and resistance against them in Japan. The globalisation of LGBTIQ rights as human rights is one of the most significant changes of international norms. At the same time, the new liberal democratic norms and ideas of human rights are arousing nationalism and far-right populism as well. In this sense, LGBTIQ issues reveal contemporary social struggles and negotiations between transnational changes of democratic and human rights ideas and conservative forces against the new social order. This project aims to historicise struggles of LGBTIQ movements in Japan since the 2000s. It will analyse both pro- and anti-LGBTIQ rights discourses and investigate the tense relationship between Japanese LGBTIQ rights and Japanese ethno-nationalism/conservatism from transnational perspectives. This project is designed to achieve three main ends for further research. Firstly, it will collect and archive LGBTIQ-related political and cultural materials. Secondly, analysing pro- and anti-LGBTIQ discourses in Japan, this project identifies dynamisms of contemporary social changes and political logic of inclusion and exclusion of social minorities in Japan. Thirdly, this project seeks to offer a theoretical and historical groundwork for discussion of sexual minorities in Japan, especially for future LGBTIQ research. Through analysing struggles between pro- and anti-LGBTIQ rights discourses and movements in Japan, this project aims to contribute to contemporary debates on human rights and justice in the age of globalising LGBTIQ politics and human rights.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants