Nora Kottmann

Profile on ORCID

My research centers around the question of how and where individuals relate and belong in the context of changing socio-economic contexts and global processes and developments. It addresses a broad array of topics, including marriage and the family, personal relationships, singlehood, diversification of life styles, diversity, work-life-balance, gender, demographic and social change, transnational and multilocal families/relationships, privileged migration, (im)mobility, as well as methods (qualitative, mixed methods) in social science research.

At the DIJ, I am currently working on three main projects: (1) Relationships ‘beyond‘ marriage and intimate spaces in urban Japan (e.g., romantic relationships, singlehood, friendships, collective/shared housing); (2) The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on unmarried individuals in Japan (with Dr. Laura Dales, The University of Western Australia); (3) (Digital) family practices and practices of belonging of highly mobile, transnational professionals in and from Asia. Since 2020, I am also the head of the research focus ‘Area Studies: Methods and Methodologies’. I am the organizer of the DIJ Method Talks and editor of the handbook Studying Japan (with Dr. Cornelia Reiher; Nomos, 2020).

From 2008–2018, I worked at the HHU Düsseldorf as Research Associate and Lecturer (Institute for Modern Japanese Studies). There, I received my PhD with a sociological study on the meaning of marriage in the context of of the low birth rate and the rapidly aging society (publication: Marriage in Japan; Springer VS, 2016). I taught at several European and Japanese Universities and my work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Gender Place & Culture, Social Science Japan Journal, and International Journal of Social Research Methodology. In addition to my specialization in contemporary Japan, I have a profound interest and expertise in South Asia, in particular Nepal and India.