Nana Oishi

Associate Professor Nana Oishi is Head of Japanese Studies in the Asia Institute within the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She earned her PhD in Sociology from Harvard University as a Fulbright Scholar. Her doctoral thesis, titled Women on the Move: Globalization, State Policies, and Labor Migration in Asia, examined cross-national patterns of international female migration in Asia based on fieldwork in ten countries. Prior to her current appointment, Oishi held the position of Professor of Sociology at Sophia University in Tokyo. She also worked as a Policy Analyst at the International Labour Organization in Geneva and as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego.

Oishi specializes in migration studies and Japanese studies. Her research interests include sociology of migration, globalization, transnational migration, skilled and unskilled migration policies in Japan, brain drain, Japanese diaspora and narratives of migrants, working holiday makers, care workers' mobility, structural economic nationalism, and gendered impacts of COVID-19 such as suicide, underemployment, and poverty. Key publications include her book Women in Motion: Globalization, State Policies, and Labor Migration in Asia (Stanford University Press, 2005); 'The Limits of Immigration Policies: The Challenges of Highly Skilled Migration in Japan' (American Behavioral Scientist, 2012); 'Skilled or Unskilled?: The Reconfiguration of Migration Policies in Japan' (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2021); 'Silent Exits: Risk and Post-3.11 Skilled Migration from Japan to Australia' (2019); 'Country Risks and Brain Drain: The Emigration Potential of Japanese Skilled Workers' (2021); and 'The Pitfalls of Skilled Migration Policies in Japan' (2018). She edited Handbook on Migration in Asia. Oishi's scholarship has received over 2,215 citations on Google Scholar, contributing significantly to understandings of migration dynamics in Japan and Asia, including policy reconfiguration, institutional isomorphism, and regional vitalization.

Professional Email: nana.oishi@unimelb.edu.au