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Dr. Nobuko Adachi

Professor
Sociology and Anthropology
Office
SCH Schroeder Hall 348
  • About
  • Education
  • Awards & Honors
  • Research

Current Courses

277.001Explorations in Language and Culture

342.001Sociolinguistics

442.001Sociolinguistics

308.001Voices of Global Japan

408.001Voices of Global Japan

485.001Advanced Study Of Asian America

287.004Independent Study In Anthropology

278.001Introduction To Asian America

294.001Japanese Society And Culture

Teaching Interests & Areas

Nobuko Adachi is an anthropologist specializing in linguistics, diaspora studies, and ethnohistory. She has been the editor of Pan-Japan: The International Journal of the Japanese Diaspora since 2000. Classes Taught: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology; Introduction to Asian America; Japanese Diaspora, Culture, and Identity; Principles of Ethnology; General Anthropology; Japanese Communicative Strategies; Japanese Society and Culture; The Japanese Way of Life; The Geography of Japanese Emigration

Research Interests & Areas

Asian American studies; diaspora theory; transnational migrations in cultural, political, and economic contexts (especially Japanese immigration to the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Peru), Japanese and Koreans in the former USSR; race and racism, ethnic identity; minorities, justice, and injustice; sociolinguistics (language and power, language change, language death and language maintenance, language shift, pidgins, code-switching, foreigner talk, bilingualism

Post-Doc

University of Florida - Center for Latin American Studies
Gainesville, FL

Ph D Anthropology

University of Toronto
Toronto, CA

MA Anthropology

University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign

BA International Relations

Nihon University
Japan

Outstanding Colleage Researcher in Social Sciences

College of Art and Sciences, Illinois State University
2020

Sabbatical

Illinois State University
2019

The Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Fellowship Scholars and Researchers

Japan Foundation
2019

Sabbatical

2012

University Research Initiative Award

Illinois State University
2009

The Dean’s Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement

College of Art and Sciences, Illinois State University
2007

Rockefeller Residential Fellowship

Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville
2000

Book Review

Adachi, N. Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas. Pacific Affairs 93.4 (2020)
Adachi, N. Diaspora and Identity: Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and Japan. The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History 76.1 (2019): 193-196.
Adachi, N. Book Review of Multiethnic Korea?: Multiculturalism, Migration, and Peoplehood Diversity in Contemporary South Korea. American Ethnologist 43.3 (2016): 573-576.
Adachi, N. Book Review of Return: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia. American Ethnologist 41.4 (2014): 782-783.
Adachi, N. Review of "Embodying Belonging: Racializing Okinawan Diaspora in Bolivia and Japan" by Taku Suzuki. Anthropos 107 (2012): 306-7.

Book, Authored

Stanlaw, J., Adachi, N., & Salzmann, Z. Turkish translation of Language, Culture, and Society, 7th ed. by James Stanlaw, Nobuko Adachi, Zdenek Salzmann,. Mak Grup Medya Pro. Rek. Yay. A.S. (2023): 500.
Adachi, N. Ethnic Capital in a Japanese Brazilian Commune: Children of Nature. Lexington (2017)
Adachi, N. Japanese and Nikkei at Home and Abroad: Negotiating Identities in a Global World (2010)
Adachi, N. Japanīzu Diasupora: Uzumoreta Kako, Tōsō no Genzai, Futashikana Mirai. Shinsen-sha. (2008)
Ito, M., Adachi, N., & Stanlaw, J. “I’m Married to Your Company!:” Everyday Voices of Japanese Women [Onna no Serifu 12. Rowman & Littlefield (2007)

Book, Chapter

Adachi, N. Constructing Japanese Brazilian identity: from agrarian migrants to urban white-collar workers. Nobuko Adachi (EDs). Routledge (2006): 102-120.
Adachi, N. Introduction: theorizing Japanese diaspor. Routledge (2006): 1-22.
Adachi, N. Brazil: A Nation Created by Transnational Migrants. Maura Toro-Morn and Marixa Alicea (EDs), Migration and Immigration: A Global View. Greenwood Press (2004): 19-34.

Conference Proceeding

Adachi, N. Gender Roles, Women's Speech, and Ethnic and Community Boundaries in a Japanese-Brazilian Commun. S. Wertheim, Ashlee C. Bailey and Monica Corston-Oliver (EDs), Engendering Communication: Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Women’s Language Conference. Berkeley Women and Language Group, University of California (1998): 1-12.

Encyclopedia

Adachi, N. Language and Diaspora. The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell (2021)
Adachi, N. The Emigrants from Japan. Louis G. Perez (EDs), Japan at War: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO (2013): 77-83.

Journal Article

Adachi, N. Social and Cultural Hazards, From the 3.11 Disaster Through Today’s Global Warming: Shifting Conceptions of the Soma Nomaoi Cavalry Event in Fukushima, Japan. Nigel Parton and Christopher Dyer (EDs), Anthropological Reflections on Crisis and Disaster. Social Sciences 13.6 (2024)
Adachi, N. Signi.cance of the Nomaoi Festival after 3.11 in Fukushima: Enactment and Reenactment. the JAWS online series of Re/ections from Tōhoku. The Japan Anthropology Workshop (2021)
Adachi, N. Yellow Peril Redux: Vitalizing Pre-existing Racial Conditions with a New Symbol. Educational Reserach ad Development Journal 24.2 (2021): 29-51.
Adachi, N. “But It’s Our Mother Tongue!”: The Japanese Language Spoken in a Japanese Brazilian Community. Japanese Language and Literature (2015): 453-483.
Adachi, N. Japanese Brazilians: A Positive Ethnic Minority in a Racial Democracy. Studies on Asia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 4.No. 2 (2014): 31-73.

Textbook, Revised

Stanlaw, J., Adachi, N., & Salzmann, Z. Language, Culture, and Society: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, 7th ed.. Westview Press (2017)
Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw, J., & Adachi, N. Language, Culture, and Society: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology, 6th ed.. Westview Press (2015)
Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw, J., & Adachi, N. Language, Culture, and Society, 5th ed.. Westview (2011): 448.

Presentations

Oral. Annual Conference of Association for Asian Studies. Association for Asian Studies. (2025)
Diversity Among the Victims of the 3.11 Disaster: How Secondary Hazards Are Differentially Affecting Participants in the Nomaoi Ceremony. The Annual meeting of the Soceity for Applied Anthropology. Soceity for Applied Anthropology. (2024)
How Might a Cultural Practice Be Sustained?: Survival Strategies in the Soma Nomaoi Cavalry Festival in Fukushima, Japan. Anual conference of Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs. Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs. (2024)
Kubo women's language. Bi/Multilingualism in the Japanese at the East Asian Studies (EAS). East Asian Studies (EAS), Emory University. (2024)
Talk. Japan Studies Event. University of Missouri-St. Louis. (2024)
Global Perspective, Japan. Global Perspectives, Multicultural Manners. College of Business, ISU. (2023)
Making Minorities: Fukushima Radiation Evacuees and a New Kind of Burakumin Caste in Japan. Annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology. Society for Applied Anthropology. (2023)
Panel discussant. Annual meeting of Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs. Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs. (2023)
Social Aftershocks and Shifting Cultural Values Following the Fukushima, Japan, Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster: A Thousand-year-old Samurai Ceremony Becomes a Tourist Horse Festival. Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs. Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs. (2023)
The Secondary Hazards of the 3.11 Disaster at Fukushima: Shifting the Socio-Cultural Values of the Soma Nomaoi Cavalry Event. Midwest Japan Seminar. Midwest Japan. (2023)

Grants & Contracts

Research Fellowship (Short-Term). Japan Foundation. Other. (2019)
Summer Faculty Fellowship (SFF). Research Grant Program. Illinois State University. (2019)
Global Engagement Learning Grant. Office of International Studies and Programs. Illinois State University. (2018)
Harold K. Sage Fund. Illinois State University. Illinois State University. (2018)
Multi-Ethnic Cultural and Co-Curricular Programming Advisory Committee. Dean of Students. Illinois State University. (2018)