Kristin Surak
Ph.D. Sociology, UCLA, 2009
M.A. Sociology, UCLA, 2003
B.S. Sociology, summa cum laude, Florida State University, 1998
B.A. International Affairs, summa cum laude, Florida State University, 1998
Fax: 310-206-9838
E-mail:
ksurak@ucla.edu
Subfield
Race and Ethnicity, International Migration, Culture, Globalization, Nationalism, Qualitative Methods
Research Interests
Please visit my personal website for more details.
Dissertation
Nation-Work: Making Tea, Making Japanese
My dissertation examines how cultural practices are used to produce and enact ethnicity and nationhood in everyday life through an investigation of tea ceremony in twentieth century Japan and abroad. I identify two kinds of “nation-work” that cultural practices may be used to accomplish. In explanation-work, culture is used to objectify and specify the abstract concept “nation” and to explain what is distinctive to a particular nation. In cultivation-work, culture is used to socialize or train persons as exemplary members of the nation. While much research on ethnicity and nationalism has examined boundaries between ethnic and national groups, I take up a largely monoethnic case to examine how ethnicity is made significant and produced not only between but also within ethnic and national groups. By taking cultural practices rather than ethnic or national groups as the unit of analysis, the research design facilitates investigation of how ethnicity and nationhood are invoked and enacted in interaction rather than imposing ethnic or national frames on the data from the outset.
Empirically, I combine historical and micro-interactional methods to show how practitioners, educators, and elites transformed tea ceremony into a venue and vehicle for Japaneseness around the turn of the twentieth century; how practitioners and others use tea ceremony to make Japanese in Japan today; and how these processes are transformed when Japanese migrants recreate the practice outside its homeland, in the US and China. This project provides a systematic analysis of the different ways in which cultural practices can be used to explain and cultivate nationness – that is, a praxeology of everyday cultural nationalism. The research was carried out with the generous support of Fulbright-Hays, Japan Foundation, UCLA Graduate Division, Sasakawa Foundation, and Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies grants. The data were collected during 20 months of fieldwork in Japan and through additional fieldwork in the US and China.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
"Culture on the Move: Tea Ceremony in and out of Japan"
“Assumptions of Assimilation and Directions for Future Work” (with Ellen Wight)
Publications
REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES
Surak, Kristin (2008) "Convergence in Foreigners' Rights and Citizenship Laws? A Look at Japan" International Migration Review 42(3) 550-75.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121398565/abstract
Surak, Kristin (2006) “’Ethnic’ Practices in Translation: Tea in Japan and the US” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 29(5) 828-55.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rers/2006/00000029/00000005/art00003
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Surak, Kristin (forthcoming) "Making 'Japanese' Tea" in "Making" Japanese Heritage. Rupert Cox and Christoph Brumann, eds. London: Routledge.
Recchi, Ettore, Damian Tambini, Emilliana Baldoni, David Williams, KRISTIN SURAK, Adrian Favell (2003) "Intra-EU Migration: A Socio-demographic Overview" Working Paper no. 3. The PIONEUR Project, Universidad de Alicante.
http://www.obets.ua.es/pioneur/documentos_public.php
Grants and Awards
UCLA Chancellor’s Fellow
American Academy of Political and Social Science Graduate Fellow
Frankfurt University Interdisciplinary Center for East Asian Studies Young Scholars Prize
Wagatsuma Research Fellowship (2009)
UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship (2008-09)
Sasakawa Research Grant (2008)
Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2007)
Japan Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2006-07)
Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies Research Grant (2006)
Sasakawa Research Grant (2005)
Sato Foundation Fellowship (2004-05)
US Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (2004-05)
UCLA Japan Center Grant (2004)
Berkeley Center for German and European Studies Predissertation Research Grant (2004)
Sasakawa Research Grant (2003)
UCLA Sociology Chancellor's Fellowship (2001-06)
Advisors
Rogers Brubaker (chair), Andreas Wimmer, Adrian Favell, Gail Kligman, Morgan Pitelka, Herman Ooms
Conference Presentations
REFEREED CONFERENCE PAPERS
2008 “Assessing Theories of Immigration Policy Convergence: A Look at Japan.” American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Harvard University, Boston. August.
2007 「日本文化」としての茶道―日本とアメリカの比較 (Tea Ceremony as “Japanese Culture”: A Comparison of Japan and the US). Japan Sociological Society Annual Meeting, Kanto Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan. November.
2007 “Nationwork: Making Tea, Making Japanese.” Anthropology of Japan in Japan Annual Meeting, Temple University, Tokyo, Japan. November.
2007 “Convergence and Japan’s Postwar Foreigner Policies.” Asian Studies Conference Japan, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan. June.
2005「移動する」文化：国内および海外における茶道 (Culture on the Move: Tea
Ceremony In and Out of Japan). Cultural Typhoon Conference, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. July.
2004 “’Ethnic’ Practices in Translation: Tea in Japan and the US.” American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, UC Berkeley, San Francisco. August.
2003 “Changing Meanings of ‘Japanese Heritage’ in Migration.” European Association for Japanese Studies Annual Meeting, Warsaw University, Poland. August.
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
2008 “Using Culture for Nation-Work: Making Tea, Making Japanese.” Cultural Power Asia – Producing Culture, Building Identities, Frankfurt University, Frankfurt, Germany, November.
2008 “The Transnational Way of Tea: Tea Ceremony in Japan, China, and the US.”
J-Wave USA, Southern California as the Gateway to Japanese Creative Industries in the West, UCLA. March.
2006 "Culture in the Flesh." Transculturation and National Signifiers: "Japan" In, After, and Via Diaspora and Return Conference, UCLA. April.
2006 "Tea and Gender in Translation." LA as Offshore Japan, Transnational Networks and Cultural Entrepreneurship across the Pacific Rim Conference, UCLA. May.
2004 “Assimilation and the State” (with Ellen Wight). Author meets critics session on
Remaking the American Mainstream. SSRC Summer Institute on International Migration, UCLA. June.
2004 “Convergence in Foreigners' Rights and Citizenship Laws? A Look at Japan.”
SSRC Summer Institute on International Migration, UCLA. June.
2003 “Methodological Issues in Studying Japanese High-Skilled Migration.” The Human Face of Global Mobility, Center for Comparative and Global Research, UCLA. May.
2003 “Tea: Nationhood and Ethnicity in Japan and the US.” Society for Comparative Research Graduate Student Retreat, Princeton University. May.
INVITED LECTURES
2007 茶道とジェンダーとエスニシティー (Tea Ceremony, Gender, and Ethnicity)
Japanese Society for Studies of Chanoyu, Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo, Japan September.
2005 日本文化とは？アメリカ文化とは？ (Japanese Culture? American Culture?).
Wakou University, Tokyo, Japan, June.
LANGUAGES
Japanese, fluent reading and speaking
German, fluent reading and speaking
Chinese, beginner reading and speaking
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