SSC Seminar Series: Asako Takano (Professor, Meiji Pharmaceutical University, Japan) & Midori Ogasawara (Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen's University)

Identification Technologies and Mobilities: How Colonial Japan Watched Over Chinese Workers Using Fingerprints

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

12:30 – 2:00 pm


Mackintosh Corry Hall D411

Abstract:

The invention of identification technologies is deeply connected with the surveillance of colonial populations. Today, in gobalized contexts, similar technologies are used to control the movements of a wider population, including migrants and refugees. We examine the narratives surrounding the Japanese identification systems deployed in Manchuria, Northeast China, in the 1920’s-1945, and discuss the historical transformation of the management of individual bodies through their movements from one location to another.
 
About the Speakers:

Asako Takano is an Associate Professor at Meiji Pharmaceutical University in Tokyo, Japan. She received her Ph.D. in Social Sciences from Hitotsubashi University, and published her book in Japan in 2016, Fingerprints and Modernity.
 
Midori Ogasawara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University. She conducted field research in China to investigate the Chinese experiences of Japanese ID systems and obtained her Ph.D. in Sociology from Queen’s in 2018.
 
Everyone Welcome!