Emily Boon
Emily Boon is a junior researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre, where she conducted a research project on Japanese LGBTQ+ politics, with a particular focus on the role of international actors such as NGOs and foreign governments. She is currently based in Japan, where she contributes as a lexicographer to the New Dutch-Japanese & Japanese-Dutch Dictionary.
Emily completed a BA Japanese Studies, a minor in Journalism and New Media, and a MA Asian Studies and MA International Relations at Leiden University. From September 2022 to September 2023, she spent a year as an exchange student at Waseda University’s Graduate School of Political Science (GSPS) in Tokyo. She wrote her BA thesis on the topic of the policy diffusion of so-called “LGBT partnership systems” among Japanese local governments, while her MA thesis consisted of a critical discourse analysis with regards to (de)pathologization of transgender identities in Japan.
Emily’s research tends to focus on gender, sexuality, Japanese politics, popular culture, and especially on intersections between those topics. She furthermore has an interest in Japanese tanka and senryu poetry.
- Japan, LGBTQ+ politics
- Japanese local governments
- Popular culture
- International relations
Contemporary LGBTQ+ Politics in Japan
