Dr. Daniel Kremers
Ph.D. Student (scholarship holder 10/2008-09/2011)
Dissertation Defense: 27.01.2015
Predicate: magna cum laude
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Gesine Foljanty-Jost
Overview
Immigration, a public interest? Functions of civil society in the discussion on Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program between ‘human rights’ and ‘human resources’
My dissertation explores the impact and function of civil society in Japan within the making and implementation of immigration policies, taking temporary labor migration as an example. The analysis is based on a Gramscian understanding of the state. This is theoretically refined, with reference to forms of capital, transnational advocacy networks, as well as the agenda setting approach. Data was generated via qualitative textual analysis, semi structured interviews, participant observation and quantitative media content analysis.
Since 1993 lesser skilled persons from countries that receive official development assistance from Japan, were allowed to enter Japan temporarily for a job-training with an adjacent internship. In 1997 the length of the so-called Industrial Training- and Technical Internship Program (IT-TIP) was extended from two to three years.
During the first year participants received theoretical off-the-job and practical on-the-job training without working permit and were excluded from workers rights and compensations. Technical interns in the second and third year would sign an employment contract and Japanese labor laws applied. In 2010 both programs were merged into the new Technical Intern Training Program (TITP) in which a working permit is granted after two month of introductory class room training.
During the 2000s the numbers of migrants and employers participating in the program rose sharply. On the climax of the world financial crisis in 2008 circa 200,000 of these temporary migrant workers resided in Japan. Roughly 60 percent of the participants come from the Peoples Republic of China and more than half of them are women. They work predominantly in metal processing, food processing, textile industries, as well as agriculture and fishery, mainly in the rural peripheries of urban centers. There they are recruited by local cooperatives and dispatched to small and medium sized enterprises (SME). While this is supposed to foster technology transfer to the sending countries, it has become a major source for flexible, disposable and low paid workers in struggling SMEs.
While business associations pushed for a further expansion of the program, Migrant-Advocacy-Organizations evolved in Japan, who demanded for the program to be abolished, pointing out cases of poor working conditions and human rights violations.
Previous research has stressed the political impotence of civil society and a limitation of Migrant-Support-Organizations (MSO) to local support. Departing from that, this research has shown that MAOs have formed as national umbrellas of local MHOs and started acting on a transnational level. By leveling the influence of more established interest groups, they influenced the policy making process.
To do so they did not only contacted law makers in Japan but also the mass media and established transnational advocacy networks. They convinced the US government and the United Nations of their view on the program and exerted political leverage on the Japanese government.
Education
| 2008-2015 | Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, PhD Student, subject of the research: “Immigration, a public interest? Functions of civil society in the discussion on Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program between ‘human rights’ and ‘human resources’‘” Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Gesine Foljanty-Jost |
| 2000-2008 | University of Leipzig, M.A. in Japanese Studies (major), Politic Science (minor), Journalism (minor) |
| 2004-2005 | Waseda University, Tokyo |
| 1999 | Tilemann Schule, Limburg a.d. Lahn, Abitur |
Work Experience
| Since 2015 | Senior Research Fellow, German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tokyo |
| 2012 | Teaching assignment, Institute for Political Science and Japanese Studies, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg |
| Since 2008 | Production, directing und distribution of the documentary movie “Sour Strawberries – Japan’s hidden ‘guest workers’” |
| 2005-2006 | Student Assistant, Hochschule für Musik und Theater (HMT) „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ Leipzig |
Publications
Articles
2014
Transnational Migrant Advocacy from Japan: Tipping the Scales in the Policy Making Process. In: Pacific Affairs, Vol. No. 87 (December 2014). pp. 715-741.
http://www.pacificaffairs.ubc.ca/recent-issues/recent-issue-vol-87-no-4-december-2014/
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5509/2014874715
2011
Technologietransfer oder Import von Arbeitskräften? Politische und wirtschaftliche Dimensionen des Trainings und Praktikums für Ausländer in Japan 1982 bis 2010 (Technology Transfer or Migrant Labour? Political and Economic Dimensions of the Industrial Training and Technical Internship Program in Japan 1982 to 2010). In: Chiavacci, David; Wieczorek, Iris (Ed.) Japan 2011: Politik, Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft. Vereinigung für sozialwissenschaftliche Japanforschung. pp. 147-185.
http://www.vsjf.net/yearbook/pdffiles/2011/Kremers%2012.12.2011.pdf
Working Papers
2011
„Das Problem der ausländischen Trainees“ – Subjektkonstruktionen in Zuwanderungspolitik und themenanwaltschaftlicher Vertretung in Japan, SCM Online Working Paper No. 16. Halle: Graduate School Society and Culture in Motion / Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.
http://wcms.uzi.uni-halle.de/download.php?down=22204&elem=2529107
Other Publications
2010
Conference report "Migration und ihre Grenzen - Asien als Perspektive?" Korea Verband e.V. & Südasien-Informationsnetz e.V., Bildungszentrum Clara Sahlberg, Berlin 17.-18. Sept. 2010. In: Günter Schucher et. al. (Hg.): Asien - The German Journal on Contemporary Asia, Vol. 117, October 2010, Hamburg, pp. 80-83.
2009
Together with Tilman König und Shingo Matsumura “Sour Strawberries – Japan’s hidden ‘guest workers”, documentary movie, 60min, Germany/Japan 2009.