The 31st JAWS Conference will be held in Barcelona, from July 6-9, 2022.

The conference will be 100% face-to-face and based around the global theme: Research  on Japan in the (Post-)COVID-19 Era 

The organization of the conference and its program will be managed by Blai Guarné  (UAB): blai.guarne@uab.cat 

Dates: July 6-9, 2022

Venue: Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona  (UAB, Autonomous University of Barcelona), Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) 

Official website : https://japananthropologyworkshop.org/upcoming-31st-jaws-conference/

Call for Papers & Panels 

Research on Japan in the (Post-)COVID-19 Era  

Since the last face-to-face JAWS Conference, held in Aarhus (Denmark) in April 2019,  Japan left the Heisei era behind to fully enter the Reiwa era. The country commemorated  the 10th anniversary of the March 2011 triple disaster, despite multiple unknowns  remaining such as communities undergoing reconstruction and daily recovery. And, due  to the global pandemic, Japan postponed the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games for a year,  finally holding them in 2021 amid widespread social opposition in view of the need to  concentrate government efforts on the ongoing fight against COVID-19. 

Since Aarhus 2019, there can be no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis has shaken Japan  more than any other event, as it has our research projects and personal realities, which  have been affected by a pandemic that has seen our daily lives flooded by dystopian  images. Concepts like ‘social distancing,’ ‘state of emergency,’ ‘lockdown’, and ‘contact 

tracing apps’ have become the norm in a resignified social context labelled as the ‘new  normal,’ while throughout the world we have become accustomed to interpreting  information and statistics on epidemic waves, antigen tests, and vaccination  percentages. 

These developments have added new and complex dimensions to the sense of  uncertainty that Japan began to experience more than two decades ago, stoking the  perception of the social and economic imbalances and inequalities of what has been  described as a ‘disparity society.’ The transformations these new challenges require are  as deep in magnitude as they are global in scope. Paradoxically, the Tokyo Olympic  Games, originally conceived as a celebration of post-Fukushima national recovery in  which a reinvigorated Japan was going to flaunt its international profile as a cultural  superpower and global tourist destination, has ended up being an understated  commemoration of an uncertain post-COVID recovery, despite the

multiculturalist  fantasy and discourse of universal gratitude and hope exhibited in its restrained opening  ceremony. 

With the state of affairs as it is, and bearing in mind that the JAWS Conference 2022 in  Barcelona will be the first face-to-face meeting many of JAWS members will attend since  the beginning of the pandemic, there is little doubt the meeting should be dedicated to  reflecting on what Japan, and by extension our research on its social and cultural 

realities, are going through. Our ultimate aim is to broadly examine the ongoing impact  and effects, as well as the immediate consequences and implications of the COVID-19  crisis for both Japanese society at large and, more specifically, our research projects. 

This is an explicitly and deliberately open theme, chosen to allow all members of JAWS –from different research interests and various stages of their academic careers– to have  a space to discuss and renew our shared endeavors regarding the Anthropology of  Japan in the (Post-)COVID-19 era. This comes after all the difficulties we have faced  (funding, cancelled projects, postponed fieldwork, etc.), but also the new opportunities  that have emerged (online research, remote fieldwork, digital meetings, etc.) over the last two years. We, therefore, welcome the submission of individual papers and panel  proposals related to this broad theme, so that together we can build a relaxed and  productive scholarly environment in Barcelona, focused on the Anthropology of Japan. 

By the same token, and despite the conference’s deliberately open theme, the  submission of any individual paper and panel proposal that is not directly related to this  subject, is also more than welcome, as is customary at the JAWS conferences. 

Deadlines and notification 

Based on the new conference dates, a new period for submitting individual paper and panel proposals (abstracts of 250 words) has been announced with a single deadline on 14 February 2022 and date for notification of successful submissions on 28 February 2022. Please send your proposals to the following email address: 

jaws2022barcelona[at]gmail.com

Conference website: the JAWS 2022 homepage at UAB will be open by October, and will provide practical information on the Conference and for your stay in Barcelona.