Japan
May/June 2026
The Office of Global Engagement at NIC is excited to announce the Fishing, Indigeneity and the Asia Pacific Field School. This is an opportunity for students to travel to the coastal city of Wakayama, in Japan's Kansai Region, for a 10-day Field School.
Students will spend the trip exploring both urban and rural Japanese towns, cities and historic museums. They will participate in hands-on learning about local fishing practices within Japan's indigenous community and Canada's deep-rooted connection to the town of Mio.
Deadline:
TBD
Cost:
Around $5,500
Credits:
Description: 3 credits: GLS 241 - Field School: Fishing, Indigeneity and the Asia Pacific
Description:
This Field School uses the Canadian fishing industry as a vehicle to explore issues of Indigenous sovereignty, trans-pacific migration, ethnic and intercultural relations and globalization. Canada is a nation built on fish, and the fishery remains culturally and economically integral to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. This field school offers the opportunity to reflect on the importance of the land, sea and marine life to local family networks in decolonized and indigenous ways of knowing and being. Also known as “property” from capitalist, settler colonial perspectives, and as ways of knowing in East Asian cultures.
Students participating in this field school are invited to reflect on Indigenous, Japanese and colonial ways of conceptualizing the world. They will reflect on self, sense of community, property, sovereignty and fishing. The field school will also explore the circumstances, conditions and motivations driving the Japanese migration to Canada. They will consider them in the context of immigration and Indigenous rights today.