Emily Boon
Emily Boon is a junior researcher at the LeidenAsiaCentre. She is currently conducting a research project on Japanese LGBTQ+ politics, with a particular focus on the role of international actors such as NGOs and foreign governments.
Emily completed a BA Japanese Studies, a minor in Journalism and New Media, and a 2-year MA Asian Studies 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. She is enrolled in Leiden University’s MA International Relations, for which she is working on her thesis.
Emily’s research tends to focus on gender, sexuality, Japanese politics, popular culture, and especially on intersections between those topics. In her spare time, she likes to write Japanese tanka and senryu poetry. Her interest in Japanese poetry was sparked during her exchange at Waseda University, where she took a course on writing tanka. She is currently a member of the tanka association “50番地”. She hopes to one day conduct research on Japanese poems about politics, gender and sexuality.
