Faculty

Sachiko Horiguchi earned her BA in English Literature from Sophia University and worked for a Japanese company in Tokyo, before pursuing postgraduate degrees in the UK. She received her MA in English Language Studies and Methods from the University of Warwick (with distinction), followed by her MPhil and DPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford (St. Antony's College). She is currently Professor of Anthropology at Temple University, Japan Campus, where she teaches various English-medium courses on Japan.

Professor Horiguchi’s research interests lie at the intersections of sociocultural and medical anthropology of Japan. She has examined mental health, social welfare, education, and medicine/health care in contemporary Japan. Her specific topics of focus include hikikomori (youth social withdrawal) and school non-attendance in Japan, as well as globalization of Japanese higher education. She has collaborated with sociologists, medical professionals and social policy researchers in various interdisciplinary, comparative research and educational projects. She has served as an executive committee member of Anthropology of Japan in Japan (AJJ) as well as an editor for Japanese Review of Cultural Anthropology, and is a member of Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS), Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology (JASCA), and European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS).

Professor Horiguchi's major publications include Foreign Language Education in Japan: Exploring Qualitative Approaches (2015 Sense Publishers), “Challenging the ‘Global’ in the Global Periphery: Performances and Negotiations of Academic and Personal Identities among JET-alumni Japan Scholars Based in Japan” (2020) in New Frontiers in Japanese Studies (Routledge), “Mental Health and Therapy in Japan: Conceptions, Practices, and Challenges” (2019) in Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan [second edition] (Routledge), and “‘Unhappy’ and Isolated Youth in the Midst of Social Change: Representations and Subjective Experiences of Hikikomori in Contemporary Japan” (2017) in Life Course, Happiness and Well Being in Japan (Routledge).