Professor Matthew Allen

BA, PhD (Sydney)

Location:  19.2028
Email:  mallen@uow.edu.au
Telephone:  +61 2 4221 3706

Current Research Projects

My research interests are interdisciplinary and eclectic, but I have had a long-term interest in identity and history. I have written books on the political economy of coalmining, disaster management and violence in Japan, and on the politics of identity and resistance in Okinawa, and more recently have co-edited a volume on globalization and popular culture. My research revolves around ethnographic practice combined with historical methodology, and produced within a political-economic context, mostly in Japanese language environments. I have also written a number of papers and reports on ethno-psychiatry, shamanism in Okinawa, and the potential impact of ‘traditional’ healing practices on current Japanese and western medicine. Many of these papers were produced through research collaboration with colleagues from Psychiatry at the University of the Ryukyus. More recently I have turned to broader topics such as globalization, popular culture, nationalism and food cultures, and social capital formation.

Below are four of my current projects:

Sushi on the Global Stage
This project is concerned with the emergence of Japanese food on the global arena, and is particularly focused on the production and consumption of sushi, investigating its changing iterations in a global context. This is a joint project with Rumi Sakamoto from the University of Auckland. Papers have been submitted to journals.

Memorialising the nation
This project examines how the image of ‘Japan’ is produced for popular consumption in museums of national significance; it assesses the production of the boundaries of the ‘imagined’ communities of ‘Japan’ and Áustralia’.

Nationalism and Popular Culture in Japan
This is a new co-authored project on how nationalism has been incorporated into popular cultural discourse in Japan from the late twentieth century to the present. My co-author, Rumi Sakamoto, is a sociologist with expertise on nationalism, and together we hope to produce an original and challenging volume on this highly relevant topic.

Sustainable Social Capital and Disaster Management in Australia and Japan
This project is related to an ongoing project initiated by Senshu University in Tokyo that looks at developing social capital in East Asia and now Oceania. Basing the Australian part of the project on participant observation during Cyclone Larry and its aftermath in 2006, the project looks at how social capital is of importance in response to large-scale natural disasters. It is a joint project with collaboration from University of Wollongong’s Centre for Human and Social Capital Research, Senshu University’s Graduate School of Commerce, and Terrain FNQ, Australia’s largest environmental regulatory body.

Selected Recent Research Publications

Searchable Research Information System publications database >>

Books

• 2009 (revised reprint). ALLEN, M. Undermining the Japanese Miracle: Work and Conflict in a Japanese Coal Mining Village. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge and Melbourne. 290pp; illustrations, photographs, glossary, index. ISBN0-521-45009-8. Paperback.
• 2006. ALLEN, M. and SAKAMOTO, R. (eds) Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan. Routledge. Oxon and New York. 240pp. ISBN10-415-36898-7. Hardback and Paperback.
• 2002. ALLEN, M. Identity and Resistance in Okinawa. Md. Rowman and Littlefield. 280pp; illustrations, photographs, glossary, index. ISBN 0-7425-1714-4. Hardback and Paperback. (Asian Voices series; series editor Mark Selden, Binghamton and Cornell Universities).
• 1994 (reprint 1995). ALLEN, M. Undermining the Japanese Miracle: Work and Conflict in a Japanese Coal Mining Village. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge and Melbourne. 290pp; illustrations, photographs, glossary, index. ISBN0-521-45009-8. Hardback. 

Selected recent refereed journal articles and book chapters

 On identity politics/history:

• 2010.  ALLEN, M. ‘Crossing International Borders: Okinawans, Festivals, and Representation in Hawaii.’ In J. Baxter (ed) Globalization, Localization, and Japanese Studies in the Asia-Pacific Region. Volume 1. International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken). 221-238.
• 2009. ALLEN, M. ‘Okinawans in Japan.’ In Michael Weiner (ed). Japan’s Minorities (3rd edition) Routledge. 188-205.
• 2009. (forthcoming) ALLEN, M. ‘Unravelling Mobile Identities: Japanese and Okinawans in Hawaii.’ In J. Baxter (ed) Japan and Globalization. Nichibunken.
• 2007. ALLEN, M. ‘Mass Suicides (shudan jiketsu) in Okinawa during World War 2’ Japan Focus, July 15.
• 2006. ALLEN, M. ‘‘Rallying the Village: dialect and identity on Kumejima.’ In J. Kreiner (ed). Ryukuanness or Japaneseness? London. Curzon.
• 2004. ALLEN, M. ‘Imagining Okinawan Identity in Hawaii.’ Asia Pacific Cultural Studies. 1:1. 4-26.
• 2004. ALLEN, M. ‘Editorial.’ Asia Pacific Cultural Studies. 1:1. 1-2.
• 2003. ALLEN, M.  ‘Wolves at the Back Door: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres.’ In Mark Selden and Laura Hein (ed). Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power. Michigan. Rowman and Littlefield. 39-65.
• 1997. ALLEN, M. “Corporate control and labouring lives: coalmining in interwar Japan.”  In E. Tipton (ed). Society and the State in Interwar Japan. London. Routledge. 146-169.
• 1993. ALLEN, M. ‘The Media, Postmodernism and Anthropology.’ The Australian Journal of Anthropology. 2.1 120-142.

On shamanism, gender and psychiatry:

• 2010. ALLEN, M. ‘Undermining the Occupation: Women Coalminers in 1940s Japan.’ Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol. 7, no. 2.
• 2005. ALLEN, M. ‘Being Male in a Female World: Masculinity and Gender in Okinawan Shamanism’ in M. McLelland and R. Dasgupta (eds) Gender and Transgender in Japan. Routledge. 111-126.
• 2004. ALLEN, M., NAKA, K., ISHIZU, H., ‘Attacked by the Gods or by Mental Illness: Hybridizing Mental and Spiritual Health in Okinawa. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 7:2, June, 83-107.
• 2002. ALLEN, M.  ‘Therapies of Resistance? Yuta, help-seeking, and identity in Okinawa.’ Critical Asian Studies. 34:2, 221-242.
• 2000. ALLEN, M., NAKA, K. ‘Okinawa ken ni okeru roujin to jisatsu suru kosatsu’ (An inquiry into suicide and aging in Okinawa). In Shuyama Yutaro (ed). Kourei no Youin: Okinawa shakai no raifustairu to shippei (The Primary Causes of Aging: Okinawan Society’s Lifestyle and Illness). Fukuoka. Kyushu University Press. 67-73.
• 2000. ALLEN, M. ‘Schizophrenia, Psychiatrists and Shamanism in Okinawa.’ In A.Tokita (ed). Identity Politics and Critiques in Contemporary Japan. Melbourne. Monash University. 7-24.
• 1998. ALLEN, M., NAKA, K. et al. ‘A Letter from Okinawa: Mental health and community groups.’ Journal of Mental Health (Britain), 7,4, 4. 425-30.
• 1997. ALLEN, M., NAKA, K., SAKIHARA, S., ‘Reflections on Ageing and Suicide in Okinawa: a cross-cultural perspective.’ Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare Annual Collection of Papers. July. 34-47.
• 1997. ALLEN, M., NAKA, K., SAKIHARA, S. ‘Okinawa ni okeru roujin to jisatsu ni kansuru shisai. Hikaku bunkateki shiten kara’ (Ageing and Suicide in Okinawa: A cross cultural view ) Okinawa no kikou fuudo to choushi ni kansuru kenkyu. (Research on the Climate and Natural Features of Okinawa and their Impact on Longevity) 3. 47-53.
• 1997. ALLEN, M. ‘Suicide in Okinawa: a cross-cultural perspective.’ Okinawa no kikou fuudo to choushi ni kansuru kenkyu. (Research on the Climate and Natural Features of Okinawa and their Impact on Longevity) 3. 55-66.

On popular culture:

• 2007. SAKAMOTO, R. and ALLEN, M. ‘Hating ‘The Korean Wave’’ comic books: a sign of new nationalism in Japan?’ Japan Focus, October.
• 2006. ALLEN, M. ‘South Park Does Japan: Going Global with “Chimpokomon”’ in M. Allen and R.Sakamoto (eds)  Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan. Routledge.
• 2006. ALLEN, M. and SAKAMOTO. R. ‘Inside-out Japan? Popular culture and globalization in the context of Japan’ in M. Allen and R.Sakamoto (eds) Popular Culture, Globalization and Japan. Routledge.

Relevant recent popular commentary

• 2010. ALLEN, M. and SAKAMOTO, R. ‘Globalising Sushi’ in Asian Currents. July. 11-13.
• 2010. ALLEN, M. ‘Japan Uses Sushi to Project Raw Power’. Interview on ABC Radio National, Oct 8.

Recent reviews, essays, and comments

• 2010. ALLEN, M. Christopher Nelson, Dancing With the Dead: Memory, Performance, and Everyday Life in Postwar Okinawa. Review in Social Science Japan, 13,1.
• 2008. ALLEN, M. Miyume Tanji, Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa. Review in Social Science Japan, 11,1, 172-4.
• 2007. ALLEN, M. Arne Rokkum, Nature, Ritual and Society in Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. Review essay in Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol 33:2, 454-458.
• 2004. ALLEN, M. Koichi Iwabuchi Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. Review in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 63, No. 2, May 2004, 510-511.

Recent conference papers and recent invited lectures

• 2010. ALLEN, M. “Social Capital and Disaster Management in Australia.” Keynote address. Senshu University (Tokyo Japan). Conference on Social Capital Formation in East Asia. September.
• 2010. ALLEN, M. “Is That Really Japan? Reading Japan as the orientalised other in early 21st century Western film.” ASAA Conference, Adelaide. July.
• 2010. ALLEN, M. ‘Who Healed the Boy?’ UOW Professorial Address. May. Wollongong.
• 2010. ALLEN, M. “Organised Crime in Contemporary Japan.” Centre for Transnational Crime Provention, University of Wollongong. Invited address.
• 2009. ALLEN, M. ‘“Fuck You Japanese, and Fuck You Haoles Too": The inconvenience of reconstructing an Okinawan self in Hawaii's ‘multiracial paradise’. University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts Seminar.
• 2008. ALLEN, M. and SAKAMOTO, R. “Sushi and the place of globalization in Auckland, New Zealand”. University of Auckland, School of Asian Studies Seminar.
• 2008. ALLEN, M. “Reconstructing Orientalism in Western Film: Japanese Story, Last Samurai, Lost in Translation.” Victoria University of Wellington, School of Asian Studies, Invited Seminar Series.
• 2007. ALLEN, M. “Whose Side Are You On? Okinawans and Hawaiians on the Okinawan Reversion to Japan”. New Zealand Asian Studies Conference, Otago University, New Zealand.