FILM SCREENINGFinding their niche: Unheard stories of migrant women by Megha Wadhwa
Date: December 11 (Mon.), 2023
Time: 17:30-19:30
Venue: Doshisha University, Imadegawa Campus, Ryoshinkan RY411 (in person, only the speaker's talk is online)
Speaker: Megha Wadhwa (Free University of Berlin)
Organizer: Research group "Multicultural City and the Crisis of Cohabitation" under Global Mediterranean project
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QuaMaFA Films, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Filmmaking for Fieldwork, Free University Berlin and Sophia University Tokyo.
OUTLINE
An hour-long film documents the life of two Indian women migrants who moved to Japan more than a decade ago as trailing spouses. The women were excited to move to a foreign country and to be with their husbands, but they had no prior knowledge of Japan. Having witnessed at a distance the lives of their relatives settled in the US, UK, and Canada, they had similar expectations for their own future lives in Japan. But the reality was to prove different from the expectation. In place of comfort, luxury, love, and fun, loneliness and fear took over. Through personal narratives told by the women, we examine past, present and future expectations and see how these affect their roles as Indian women, wives, mothers, and workers in a foreign country, as well as the challenges they faced in ‘Finding their Niche’.
17:30-17:40: Introductory words
17:40-18:40: Screening of “Finding their niche: Unheard stories of migrant women” (Japanese subtitles, 58min)
18:40-19:30: Q&A with director Megha Wadhwa (online), in English and Japanese
DIRECTOR’s BIO
Dr. Megha Wadhwa is a migration researcher and Japanese and Indian studies Scholar. She is a Research Associate at Free University of Berlin, and a visiting fellow at Sophia University, Tokyo, which is also her alma mater. Originally from New Delhi and she was a resident of Tokyo for about 15 years before she moved to Berlin in 2021. She is the author of the book Indian Migrants in Tokyo: A Study of Socio-Cultural, Religious and Working Worlds (Routledge, 2021). She has also written several articles on the Indian community in Japan and other topics for The Japan Times and journals. Currently she is working on ‘Indian Professionals in Japan and Singapore: Migration Trends, Labor Market Integration and Challenges’ and is a part of the research project – ‘Qualifications and Skill in the Migration Process of Foreign Workers in Asia’ (QuaMaFA), supported by Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF).
CONTACT
Hélène LE BAIL (Science Po Paris, Center for International Studies)
helene.lebail@sciencespo.fr