Following on from successful summer schools held during the Hokkaido University Global COE Program “Reshaping Japan’s Border Studies”, the UBRJ “Border Studies Summer School in 2017” was held from 12-19 July. This year, the Summer School was run as part of Hokkaido University’s Summer Institute. Jointly organized by the Hokkaido University Public Policy School and the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, UBRJ members were foremost in inviting students and delivering lectures. In addition, the Summer School was co-hosted with the National Institute for the Humanities’ Area Studies Project for Northeast Asia (NoA-SRC) and so several lectures on the Northeast Asia region and its borders were included in the program.

Naomi Chi, David Wolff, Akihiro Iwashita (UBRJ, member of NoA-SRC), Norio Horie (University of Toyama, member of NoA-SRC), Edward Boyle (Kyushu University, Center for Asia-Pacific Future Studies) and Jarosław Jańczak (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany & SRC Foreign Visitors Fellow 2017) all gave lectures. In addition, talks given by eminent researchers invited from around the world, including Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and President of the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS)), Ulises Granados (Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology) and Soeren Urbansky (University of Cambridge). Over 30 students and young researchers attended the Summer School encouraging many stimulating discussions.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make this year’s Summer School such a success.

(Akihiro Iwashita)