Congress Theme and Plenaries

Being East Asia, Thinking East Asia

Social Transformations and Dialogue for the Future

East Asia has become a crucial site for understanding the future of contemporary societies. Demographic aging, inequality, migration, digitalization, environmental challenges, urban change, and shifting geopolitical relations are reshaping social institutions, everyday life, and collective identities across the region.

Yet this congress also asks a more fundamental question: what is East Asia? East Asia is not only a geographical label, but also a historical, political, cultural, and relational category. It has been shaped by modernization, colonialism, war, development, migration, economic interdependence, and changing regional imaginations. To reflect on East Asia is therefore to examine how societies in the region have been connected, divided, compared, and represented.

The 2026 EASA Tokyo Congress invites scholars to explore both the transformations taking place in East Asia and the meaning of East Asia itself. How are inequalities, institutions, families, communities, and forms of belonging changing across the region? How do historical memories, geopolitical tensions, migration, cultural flows, and transnational connections shape what East Asia means? What can sociological inquiry from East Asia contribute to global dialogue?

We welcome papers on social transformation, inequality, migration, gender, family, work, welfare, education, culture, technology, environment, social movements, political change, regional identity, historical memory, and global dialogue. The Tokyo Congress will provide an open and collaborative space for scholars from East Asia, Asia, and the wider world to share research and imagine more inclusive futures.

Submissions are welcome on the congress theme and on other sociological topics across EASA’s research networks.

Plenary 1 — November 27 (Friday)

Founding EASA: Building and Sustaining an Intellectual Community Across Contested Terrains

How can an intellectual community be built and sustained across national borders? This question is especially pertinent to East Asia, where historical and political tensions and mutual mistrust have often complicated scholarly cooperation. It also raises a broader sociological question: how can such cooperation flourish in a world marked by growing conflict and division?

The obstacles are not limited to political disputes or competing historical narratives. They include differences in language, scholarly traditions, research methods, and academic institutions, as well as inequalities in research resources and international academic influence. Scholars may also disagree over what counts as valuable knowledge. This plenary uses contested terrains to describe these overlapping tensions and disparities.

How have scholars navigated these terrains, sometimes working together without resolving their differences? EASA offers a revealing case. From the emergence of the East Asian Sociologists Network (EASN) in 2002 to the establishment of EASA in 2017, how were scholarly relationships forged, sustained, and institutionalized? What obstacles and limits did participants encounter?

Drawing on the reflections of five scholars involved in EASA since its formative years, this plenary examines the resources needed to build an intellectual community. It asks how researchers can produce knowledge together without erasing their differences, and what EASA's experience reveals about the possibilities and limits of cross-border scholarly cooperation.

Speakers

Lizhong XIE, Peking University

Hyun-Chin LIM, Seoul National University

Shujiro YAZAWA, Seijo University

Bing ZHENG, Jilin University

Seung-Kuk KIM, Pusan National University

Plenary 2 — November 28 (Saturday)

Being EASA, Shaping the Future: Toward a New Sociology from East Asia

What scholarly role should EASA play in the future? Bringing researchers from East Asia and beyond together to exchange ideas and findings is valuable, but is it enough? The more ambitious question is whether EASA can become a source of new concepts, theories, methods, and research agendas for sociology worldwide.

Many of sociology's influential concepts and theories have been shaped by the historical experiences of Western societies. Yet East Asia is not merely a setting for applying existing frameworks. Its experiences of colonialism, war, the Cold War, rapid economic development, democratization, changing family structures, low fertility and population aging, and cross-border migration challenge established understandings of modernization, the state, civil society, social stratification, and family. Can these experiences also inspire new concepts for social realities that remain undertheorized?

Meeting this challenge requires rethinking how sociological knowledge is produced internationally. Can different academic traditions and theoretical perspectives move beyond coexistence to challenge and enrich one another? The aim is not to replace Western-centered sociology with an East Asia-centered counterpart, but to rethink sociology from East Asia through dialogue with diverse sociological traditions worldwide.

Bringing together scholars who will shape EASA's future and researchers from both within and beyond East Asia, this plenary explores the prospects for a new sociology taking East Asia as its point of departure. EASA should not become an end in itself. Rather, it should serve as a vehicle for fostering new theoretical imagination and contributing to sociology worldwide. The session considers both the opportunities and the challenges of realizing that vision.

Speakers

Hirohisa TAKENOSHITA, Keio University

Taisuke FUJITA, Saitama University

Haidong ZHANG, Shanghai University

Dukjin CHANG, Seoul National University

Laurence ROULLEAU-BERGER, CNRS / École Normale Supérieure de Lyon

Qiushi FENG, National University of Singapore

*This congress is co-hosted with the Graduate School of Human Relations, Keio University.