James Farrer is professor of sociology and global studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, specializing in urban sociology in East Asia, with publications on sexuality, nightlife, expatriate communities, political protest, and food cultures. His ongoing projects focus on urban foodscapes and the place making activities of international migrants in Shanghai. He also has a new project studying community life in his own Tokyo neighborhood in which he documents the place making activities of small business people and neighborhood social entrepreneurs. The ongoing activities of this project are published in a bilingual Japanese-English blog called Nishiogiology that aims to be accessible both to scholars and community members.
His publications include Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai; Shanghai Nightscapes: A Nocturnal Biography of a Global City (with Andrew Field); and Globalization and Asian Cuisines: Transnational Networks and Contact Zones. He has also published over 50 scholarly book chapter and articles and written for general media, including Newsweek Japan, Lonely Planet Guides, Asian Wall Street Journal, YaleGlobal Online, and Global Asia. He has lived in Asia more than two decades, spending part of every year in Shanghai while based most of the year in Tokyo.
Featured Work
JUL 9, 2019 • Podcast
International Migrants in China's Global City, with James Farrer
Is China becoming an immigrant society? Why do foreigners move to the country? What can we learn by studying Shanghai's international community? James Farrer, a ...
MAR 11, 2016 • Podcast
Gender and Sexuality in Japan
Senior Fellow Devin Stewart speaks with sociologist James Farrer (Sophia University, Tokyo) about the changing norms around gender, sexual rights, dating, and marriage in Japan. ...
NOV 20, 2012 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Commentary: As Asia Waltzes Forward on Two Right Feet, America Fixates on the Middle East
The United States can be effective in its pivot toward Asia by using its influence to help resolve territorial disputes and defuse the rightward lurch ...
JAN 22, 2010 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Briefings: The Right to Move
A collection of essays from our joint Sophia University-Carnegie Council conference exploring the ethics of an international right to migration.
JAN 21, 2010 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Commentary: Cosmopolitanism as Virtue
Without high levels of migration, and a related ethical commitment to cosmopolitanism, nation-states will fail to develop the individual and collective virtues suitable to "living ...
JAN 6, 2010 • Article
Defining a Right to Move?
Beyond the ethical and practical arguments for immigration reform, the strongest case for an internationally recognized right to move may arise out of the "worst-case ...
AUG 28, 2008 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Commentary: One Bed, Different Dreams
Seeing the Olympics as a watershed event, Japanese commentators have speculated about a "post-Olympic" China, and their prognoses are generally darker than the more optimistic ...
MAY 13, 2008 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Commentary: Hu's Dumpling Diplomacy
James Farrer interviews Japanese political scientist Koichi Nakano on the significance of Chinese President Hu Jintao's May 2008 visit to Japan.
MAY 13, 2008 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Commentary: China and Japan: From Symbolism to Politics
Hu Jintao's five-day visit to Japan underlines the fact that the basis for a strong Sino-Japanese relationship already exists, says James Farrer.
JAN 31, 2008 • Article
Policy Innovations Digital Magazine (2006-2016): Commentary: The Melting Pot, the Salad Bowl, and the Confucian Ideal
Many have argued we are entering a multipolar world. Yet, this competition will not simply take place in terms of varying approaches to foreign policy ...