Stanford University

Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

Trauma and Healing in Stricken Japan

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The triple disasters in Japan in March 2011 have created overwhelming trauma in the stricken areas for people of all ages. The mental health needs are immense, both immediate and long term, and ripple out into Japanese society. Members of the Nichibei Care Network, a group of mental health professionals in the Bay Area who organized to assist relief activities, will offer their reflections on the trauma suffered. They will also report on the heroic efforts that are taking place daily as people rebuild lives through compassion and caring.

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Special Japan Studies Program and CEAS Series: Winter-Spring 2011-12

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Japan's March 11 Disasters One Year Later

The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 had both immediate catastrophic consequences and long term repercussions. Fundamental areas of Japan’s environment, economy, society, and collective national psyche were deeply affected, giving rise to a broad range of urgent issues. These include economic debates about how to meet the country’s energy demands with nuclear power plants offline, and what path to take for the country’s energy future; political crises, including criticism of the government’s disaster response; the psychological challenges of coping with trauma and grief; a daunting environmental clean-up; and social developments, including a new wave of civil society activism. This series brings together scholars and activists from a wide range of specialties to take stock of how the Japanese have been affected by the disasters, and to assess the efforts of residents, volunteers, and policy makers to recover and move forward.

Philippines Conference Room

William Masuda Reverend Speaker Palo Alto Buddhist Temple
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu Speaker Stanford School of Medicine
George Kitahara Kich, PhD Psychologist and Litigation Consultant and Adjunct Faculty Speaker California Institute of Integral Studies
Mio Yamashita Art Therapist/Marriage and Family Therapist Speaker
Seminars

Kizuna! New Forms of Social Capital in Disaster Japan

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Since the triple tragedy of March 11, 2011, we have seen a number of changes in what we sometimes refer to as "civil society" in Japan. In particular, we have seen the emergence of new forms of social capital and social strategies generated through the disaster response, including: real time flows of information over digital networks; the mobilization of various non-governmental actors and agencies in the immediate relief effort; emergence of the "volunteer" as a new cultural citizen; different patterns of contact, cooperation, and competition among previously unrelated groups and individuals in the rebuilding effort; and dispersed political opposition movements that have generated the largest protests since the 1970's AMPO demonstrations. Based on David H. Slater's volunteer relief work and disaster-focused ethnographic research, this talk will begin to document the range, depth, and limitations of these changes in terms of their disaster relief efficacy, but mostly on their possible longer-term effect on the shifting shape of civil society in post 3/11 Japan.

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Special Japan Studies Program and CEAS Series: Winter-Spring 2011-12

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Japan's March 11 Disasters One Year Later

The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 had both immediate catastrophic consequences and long term repercussions. Fundamental areas of Japan’s environment, economy, society, and collective national psyche were deeply affected, giving rise to a broad range of urgent issues. These include economic debates about how to meet the country’s energy demands with nuclear power plants offline, and what path to take for the country’s energy future; political crises, including criticism of the government’s disaster response; the psychological challenges of coping with trauma and grief; a daunting environmental clean-up; and social developments, including a new wave of civil society activism. This series brings together scholars and activists from a wide range of specialties to take stock of how the Japanese have been affected by the disasters, and to assess the efforts of residents, volunteers, and policy makers to recover and move forward.

Philippines Conference Room

David H. Slater Associate Professor of Anthropology and Japanese Studies Speaker Sophia University, Japan
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Post 3-11 Japan-China Economic and Political Relations

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This SEMINAR has been CANCELLED.

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Special Japan Studies Program and CEAS Series: Winter-Spring 2011-12

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Japan's March 11 Disasters One Year Later

The earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that hit Japan in March 2011 had both immediate catastrophic consequences and long term repercussions. Fundamental areas of Japan’s environment, economy, society, and collective national psyche were deeply affected, giving rise to a broad range of urgent issues. These include economic debates about how to meet the country’s energy demands with nuclear power plants offline, and what path to take for the country’s energy future; political crises, including criticism of the government’s disaster response; the psychological challenges of coping with trauma and grief; a daunting environmental clean-up; and social developments, including a new wave of civil society activism. This series brings together scholars and activists from a wide range of specialties to take stock of how the Japanese have been affected by the disasters, and to assess the efforts of residents, volunteers, and policy makers to recover and move forward.

Philippines Conference Room

Kiyoyuki Seguchi Research Director Speaker the Canon Institute for Global Studies; formerly head of the Bank of Japan’s Beijing Office
Seminars

Sixth Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

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The sixth session of the Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum was held in the Bechtel Conference Center at Stanford University on June 8, 2011. Established in 2006 by Stanford University and now convening semi-annually alternating between Stanford and Seoul, the Forum brings together distinguished South Korean (Republic of Korea, or ROK) and American scholars, experts, and former military and civilian officials to discuss North Korea, the U.S.-ROK alliance, and regional dynamics in Northeast Asia. Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is co-organizer of the Forum with the Sejong Institute of Korea. Operating as a closed workshop under the Chatham House Rule of individual confidentiality, the Forum allows participants to engage in candid, in-depth discussion of current issues of vital national interest to both countries.

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Shorenstein APARC

Beyond North Korea

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Beyond NK CROPPED

Why should Americans worry about South Korean security? The answer is clear: North Korea, and beyond. Most international attention to the North Korea problem has focused on U.S. policy, but South Korea's longterm role may in fact be more important. South Korea's security is vital to peace and stability, not only in Northeast Asia but also the wider world.

Written by eminent scholars, practitioners, and policymakers with extensive on-the-ground experience, Beyond North Korea assesses the varied contexts—regional and global, traditional and nontraditional—that underpin South Korea's varied security challenges. What are South Korea's military requirements? How do relations with its neighbors enhance or undermine its position? What economic, environmental, and demographic factors come into play? This book reveals that South Korea's national security rests as much on sound domestic policy choices as on successful interstate relations. 

Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.

Beyond North Korea is the first in a new series of policy-related studies on contemporary South Korea sponsored by the Koret Foundation of San Francisco.

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Books
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Future Challenges to South Korea's Security

Authors
Byung Kwan Kim
Gi-Wook Shin
David Straub
Book Publisher
Shorenstein APARC
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The Changing Governance of Higher Education in India

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In this paper, Martin Carnoy and Rafiq Dossani ask how the governance and objectives of Indian higher education have evolved, and whether changes in governance are consistent with changes in the system’s social objectives, and, in their turn, how the governance system, which is a “layered” product of past structures heavily influenced by a series of historical reforms, may impact how current social objectives are realized. These social objectives have included, at various times, at the least, equity, quality, cost effectiveness, and access. For private colleges and universities, historically always part of India’s higher education system, operating financial self-sufficiency is also an objective (a private objective).

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Working Papers
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Stanford University
Authors
Rafiq Dossani

History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories

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Over the past fifteen years Northeast Asia has witnessed growing intraregional exchanges and interactions, especially in the realms of culture and economy. Still, the region cannot escape from the burden of history.

This book examines the formation of historical memory in four Northeast Asian societies (China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the United States focusing on the period from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war in 1931 until the formal conclusion of the Pacific War with the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951.

The contributors analyse the recent efforts of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese scholars to write a ‘common history' of Northeast Asia and question the underlying motivations for their efforts and subsequent achievements. In doing so, they contend that the greatest obstacle to reconciliation in Northeast Asia lies in the existence of divided, and often conflicting, historical memories. The book argues that a more fruitful approach lies in understanding how historical memory has evolved in each country and been incorporated into respective master narratives. Through uncovering the existence of different master narratives, it is hoped, citizens will develop a more self-critical, self-reflective approach to their own history and that such an introspective effort has the potential to lay the foundation for greater self- and mutual understanding and eventual historical reconciliation in the region.

This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Asian history, Asian education and international relations in East Asia.

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Books
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Routledge
Authors
Gi-Wook Shin
Number
978-0-415-60303-4

Getting to the roots of the tobacco industry

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Tobacco now kills 90 times more people each year than HIV/AIDS in China. China's tobacco industry is closely tied to the global industry, and the Asia Health Policy Program is working to establish a new field of research on its history, beginning with a Mar. 2012 conference at the new Stanford Center at Peking University. Robert Proctor, a Stanford historian and author of a groundbreaking new book on the global tobacco industry, will take part.
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Beauty and smoking are paired in this vintage-style cigarette poster in China, Nov. 2005.
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China's vibrant, changing media landscape

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Newsstands dot the street corners of China’s major cities, and each day the country’s netizens cram into Internet cafés to surf the web and connect with friends online. Last year alone, Chinese readers purchased 50 billion newspapers and the government reported 163 million regular Internet café users—roughly one-third of China’s total Internet population.

According to panelists at the Dec. 7 China's Changing Media Landscape event, organized by Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), now is both an exciting and a challenging time to be a journalist in China.

Changes in China’s media landscape go hand in hand with today’s rapid economic, social, and political reforms, said Shorenstein APARC associate director for research Daniel C. Sneider as he opened the event. He described Caixin Media, recipient of the 2011 Shorenstein Journalism Award, as the “first truly independent media company in China.”

“We need to try harder to get a scoop, but I think it’s a nice problem to have.”
-Hu Shuli, Editor-in-Chief, Caixin Media

Hu Shuli, editor-in-chief of Caixin Media and a former Stanford Knight Journalism Fellow, said that China’s number of quality investigative and independent media outlets keeps growing. “We need to try harder to get a scoop,” she said. “But I think it’s a nice problem to have.”

Hu called technology a “double-edged sword” in that it can be manipulated in order to spread rumors and incite unproductive debates. She said, however, that the popularity of the Internet and mobile devices offers Chinese journalists the opportunity to publish news faster and reach the public through social media platforms like the country’s most popular micro-blog service Sina Weibo, which has approximately 230 million user accounts.

Caixin managing editor Wang Shuo spoke of the efforts by Caixin and other independent Chinese media outlets to gain an international audience. “China presents one of the most exciting stories of our time,” he said.

Caixin and the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal publish one another’s news stories on a monthly basis. Wang said that the modest amount of “bartered” content is not the point. “It means that a major U.S. newspaper recognizes that Caixin is up to international standards,” he said.

Ben Hu, a reporter with Southern Weekend and a current Stanford Knight Fellow, said that China’s tough licensing system makes it difficult for publications to grow. Without a license, he said, online publications cannot attract banner advertising—their real source of income. Hu spoke of a computer-coder-turned-online-news-publisher who draws half-a-million visitors to his website daily, but still cannot make a profit from it.

China’s weak copyright protection system is another major issue facing journalists today, he said. Start-up publications often plunder “real” articles and rehash the content to avoid paying a fee to license it.

Orville Schell, the director of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations and the recipient of the 2003 Shorenstein Journalism Award, said that as the traditional U.S. media industry declines, China’s continues to grow more vibrant. On the flip side, however, he said that aggressive industry competition and the state’s system of licensing and censorship challenges journalists.

But China’s system of media control may also have an inadvertent upside, Schell suggested. It may slow the spread of a dumbing down of content in television and other areas of the media, following the commerce-driven model of the U.S. media industry.

The panel discussion concluded with a lively question-and-answer session from the standing-room-only audience of members from the Stanford community and general public. Questions ranged from the role of technology in the media to China’s system of censorship.

Hu Shuli and Wang accepted the Shorenstein Journalism Award on behalf of Caixin Media at a dinner ceremony held later that day at Stanford. The event marked the first time that an Asian media outlet or journalist has won the award.

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A rare lone figure early in the day in an Internet cafe, Turpan, China. Internet- and mobile-based technologies are increasingly relevant to Chinese journalists.
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