Dear readers,
From the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, to protests across the U.S., Europe, and Hong Kong, to the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, 2020 has been a truly momentous and unpredictable year with unprecedented challenges for communities and individuals across the world. At the same time, this year also marks Contemporary Japan’s 10th year of publication in its present form (following 20 years as Japanstudien). Thanks to the hard work of the founding editors, editorial board, reviewers, and authors over the past 10 years, CJ has continued to grow its readership and reputation, and our 2019 CiteScore rose 300% from 2018 to 0.6. In addition, our 2019 CiteScore ranking rose 136 places from 2018 to reach the top 30% of Scopus-listed Cultural Studies journals, placing CJ 2nd in Scopus-listed Japanese Studies journals in the Cultural Studies category. We thank everyone involved for making this possible.
Amidst the various hardships of 2020, this issue brings together original research articles focusing on a range of topics: photography as an ethnographic method in analyzing Japanese migrants in Berlin (Gerster & Morokhova), moral education in primary school classrooms (Bamkin), issues of selfhood and shuwa communication for inte youth (deaf and hard-of-hearing youth educated in mainstream schools) (McGuire), and the role of centers for international exchange in facilitating multicultural policies on a local level (Kim & Streich). In our second installment of invited commentaries on key issues in Japanese Studies, Eyal Ben-Ari provides a sharp and provocative meditation on the relationship between area studies and disciplinary studies in the global academic system. Focusing particularly on the place of Japanese Studies within the discipline of anthropology over the past 75 years, Ben-Ari sketches a view of the academic division of labor with area studies increasingly becoming seen as the data providers and the social sciences as the theorizers, and a further division among various (linguistic) academic communities. He also highlights the adaptive potential of area studies which facilitates their continued relevance, with the global interest in Japanese popular culture typifying the adaptive potential of Japanese Studies in the twenty-first century. Lastly, as always, our book review section covers a broad range of important publications in the fields of international relations, anthropology, museum studies, history, and economics.
As I write this editorial, the remaining months of 2020 are still shrouded in uncertainty and concern, but I hope that the insights and information contained in this issue will help contribute to the vitality and vibrancy of our academic community around the world during these extreme times. And as many of us now continue to remind each other: Stay safe and stay healthy.