Mats Utas starts research project in Japan

Our former head of department, professor in cultural anthropology Mats Utas, is currently on his repatriation year in Japan. He has now recieved funding from the Swedish Japan Foundation for a research project on safety and security in the country. The project will start with fieldwork in the spring 2025.

Project description:

"Statistics show how remarkably safe Japan is. For example, in 2023, 12,372 serious crimes were reported in a population of 124 million. In 2020, Japan had 35 burglaries per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to Sweden's 783. This research project aims to contribute to understanding safety and security in urban Japan through an ethnographic field study in Nagasaki. With the overarching question: To what extent and how do local structures of belonging and cooperation contribute to a community's ability to create security and directly or indirectly counter criminal activities? this project focuses on how people relate to safety and security beyond the state and how security between people is formed, maintained, and changed over time."

You can read more about Mats Utas' research and his stay in Japan in the researcher portrait from 2024.