Hacer Elmaci from Japan!

Hello everyone! I am Hacer Elmaci. I received a bachelor's degree in History from Ankara University, Faculty of Language and History, Geography, my first master's degree in Contemporary History at Gazi University in Turkey, and my second master's degree in International Studies at the University of  Tsukuba in Japan.  I am currently a first-year Ph.D. researcher in Japanese Studies at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

My research areas are Gender and Women Studies, Modern Japanese History, Japanese Nationalism and Imperialism, Modernization, Education, History Textbooks, Turkish-Japanese Relations. My studies are funded by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of National Education Scholarship Program, the YLSY.

First of all, I would like to thank Ankara Social Sciences University Institute for  Regional Studies for allowing us to share our experiences. My academic journey started at Ankara University. I completed my BA degree at the Department of History.  I stayed in Poznan, Poland as an Erasmus exchange student at Adam Mickiewicz University during my undergraduate education. Then, I decided to study Contemporary History and applied to this department at Gazi University. My first curiosity about Japan started here. I wanted to explore a country with its own unique culture and history. My professor B. Tumen Somuncuoglu suggested studying Japanese history, and after doing some research, I decided to look at the Meiji Period in Japan. Japan entered a rapid modernization process with the 1868 Meiji Restoration and laid the foundations of today's development of Japan in this period. Some historians stated that Turkish and Japanese modernization are similar experiences because of the way of modernization. During my first master period, I read many articles on comparative Turkish and Japanese modernizations. In some studies in Turkey, it has been emphasized that Japan is the only non-Western country that can achieve modernization.

As a student of master’s degree, I had conducted a thesis, of which the subject was “Education System in Meiji Era in Japan.” In this thesis, I had examined the context of educational activities in the Meiji period, when Japanese modernization began. The most important result in my thesis was establishing a merit-based social system through education, and all related education policies were influential in the process. Another consequence of my study is that it shaped women's education around a more traditional and patriarchal view in Japanese education modernization emphasized enlightenment and modernization in every subject. Thus, during my education at Gazi University, I decided to continue my studies in Japan and applied for the YLSY scholarship of the Ministry of National Education.

In 2017, as I decided to get an education in International Studies in Japan, I had the opportunity to proceed with my education at the University of Tsukuba. I focused on a completely different field and researched women's issues in Japan. While I was working on Japanese modernization, the idea that women's rights were particularly problematic encouraged me to examine this issue. In the last year of my studies, I researched "Underrepresentation of Women in Japanese Politics: Continuing Weak Voice in the Diet." In my thesis, I sought answers to why there is no progress in the representation of women in Japanese politics and how political parties promote women's issues. In this context, I conducted interviews with parliamentarians from various political parties and academics in Japan. During my education in Japan, besides my academic studies, getting to know Japanese society and culture was my focus. I tried to learn how the Japanese people think, perceive the world, eat and drink, read, what their inner world is like, and how they work.

After graduating, I moved to the UK and started my Ph.D. in Japanese Studies in the Department of Languages, Cultures, and Societies at the University of Leeds. I am working on the representation of gender and nationalism in history textbooks used in Japan. In my work, I focused on the Japanese imperialism era. I am looking for answers to how genders are formed and represented in the official state discourse through history textbooks in Japan on the axis of nationalism and what sort of the ideologies behind the texts and images about gender and nationalism in Japanese school history textbooks. History textbooks are the most basic educational materials for creating a national identity and transferring the official state ideology to generations. It is also possible to reach large audiences with textbooks. For all these reasons, I chose Japanese school history textbooks as my study subject.  I am also researching the view of history teachers about the representation of gender and nationalism, who play an essential role in transferring information in books. How they are conveyed to students and subjects are interpreted is as crucial as handling the topics in the textbooks.

In addition, this current study environment has led me to question how academic studies and programs about area studies, mainly Japanese Studies, are formed and worked in the UK. It is essential to learn how area studies are carried out and maintained systematically in other countries as much as knowledge and experience the area first-hand in studies related to areas.

For further questions about Japan and the United Kingdom, feel free to contact me: hacerelmac@gmail.com.

Have a nice day 😊