
Dr Junko Yamashita
B.A., M.A.(Tokyo), Ph.D.(York)
Current positions
Senior Lecturer
School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
My research centers around social and policy analysis of care, welfare, intergenerational relations, ineqaulities and gender. My work advances research and teaching on 1) sociological and policy analysis of care and 2) de-centralise the Euro-American approach to knowledge production. My research has contributed to designing a society centred around care for building a just and sustainable society and economy. My work has enhanced the understanding of how people’s engagement with care is shaped and shaping policy practices, intimate relationships and social inequalities, locally, nationally and globally. My research was instrumental for policy makers, carers and community organisations in establishing empirical evidence to enhance the recognition of multigenerational care and to lead policy changes in Japan. I have long-standing international collaboration with community organisations and local and national authorities to co-produce research and disseminate the knowledge to a wider public. I am co-founder of East Asian Social Research Policy Network and co-editor of East Asian Gender Studies; both contribute to the critical analysis of Euro-American-centred knowledge production, and my teaching is unique as it reflects such contribution of my research.
My recent research includes an international collaborative project on ‘Dual Responsibility of Care in East Asia’. The team consisted of scholars from Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and the OECD. I was Co-I and this project was funded by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (£96k for 2016-19, £92k for 2012-2015, 2016-2019). I also successfully completed a project 'Experiments in Collective Care’ funded by Brigstow Institute in 2019 (with Dr. Maud Perrier, SPAIS and Alice Tatton-Brown, artist). This was an interdisciplinary project, a collaboration with a local artist, bringing together art, archival research and public engagement through a public exhibition on collective care.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Exploring impacts of employment, poverty, social security and family relationships on the childcaring time among single mother households
Role
Co-Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Sociology, Politics and International StudiesDates
01/04/2020 to 31/03/2023
Experiments in Collective Care
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Principal Investigator
Description
What is the research project? What are the initial research questions that you want to explore? Why does it matter? How is it new? How does your project specifically…Managing organisational unit
School of Sociology, Politics and International StudiesDates
09/01/2019 to 31/07/2019
What The Future Holds
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Principal Investigator
Description
This project will seek to identify the collective care practices which formed an integral part of the
Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) and use them to create a care toolkit relevant to
contemporary…Managing organisational unit
School of Sociology, Politics and International StudiesDates
26/06/2018 to 30/09/2018
Intergenerational Approach to Dual Responsibility of Care: A Vision for Inclusive and Comprehensive Local Care System
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
This research project investigates how those who experience the double responsibility of care, by analysing resources available to them, their family and kin relationships, and the local policy context. The…Managing organisational unit
School of Sociology, Politics and International StudiesDates
01/04/2016 to 01/03/2019
The Double Responsibilities of Care in East Asia: Emerging New Social Risks of Women Providing both Elderly Care and Childcare
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
The objective of this research is to examine the reality of women facing the ‘double responsibility of care’; the reality of women having to simultaneously provide elderly and childcare, a…Managing organisational unit
School of Sociology, Politics and International StudiesDates
01/04/2012 to 01/03/2015
Thesis supervisions
Girls, Wives, Call Centre Lives
Supervisors
Publications
Selected publications
07/09/2023Pandemic reflections on the Care and Control exhibition
Feminist Theory
Defamilialisation Policies in Family Centred Welfare Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Gendered Responsibility of Multigenerational Care
Research Agenda for East Asian Social Policy
Rutledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies
Rutledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies
ひとりでやらない育児・介護のダブルケア
ひとりでやらない育児・介護のダブルケア
Recent publications
21/03/2025More Than the Sum of Multiple Care
British Journal of Sociology
なぜダブルケアは困難なのか
岩波講座 社会学
ケア責任への脱家族化政策の影響
The Japanese Journal of Labour Studies
Defamilialisation Policies in Family Centred Welfare Regimes: A Comparative Analysis of Gendered Responsibility of Multigenerational Care
Research Agenda for East Asian Social Policy
ノーマン・ジョンソン『福祉国家のゆくえ―福祉多元主義の諸問題』
福祉社会学文献ガイド