Natsuko Nojima

Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka UniversityAssistant Professor*Profile is at the time of the award.

2019Inamori Research GrantsHumanities & Sociology

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Research topics: A New Style of Exclusion and Its Generation Process in ‘Benefit Scroungers’ Discourses

Keyword

Summary: People who live on benefits from the government often become a target for criticism by taxpayers who claim that they work diligently and pay their taxes. In the U.K., there is a growing trend to regard people who live on some sort of benefits as “lazy persons who do not work” and condemn them as “benefit scroungers.” It is said that such accusations have been intensified by “reality shows,” among other things, which depict "life" of benefit recipients.
By analyzing typical “reality shows,” this proposed research is intended to reveal how the benefit recipients are represented and what kinds of persons are socially classified as “‘genuine’ patients and individuals with disabilities” or “‘fake’ patients and individuals with disabilities.” By visualizing the "life" of benefit recipients in the U.K. and examining the process of social sorting between those who deserve the benefits and those who don’t, I wish to gain insights into how we should design the future course of Japan.

Message from recipient

I deeply appreciate the selection of my proposed research project, which marks a new challenge for me as a researcher. In contemporary society, political and economic situations and various technologies are segmenting categories of people and creating a complicated structure of exclusion. I hope to present perspectives that help us not merely to empathize but to comprehend various aspects of such a society.

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