On the day I arrived in Belfast in June 2014 to join the Irish Studies Summer School, I never imagined I would be graduating with a PhD Sociology from Queen’s ten years later.  Along the way, I achieved significant milestones, such as completing my MA in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at the Mitchell Institute and working at the Embassy of Japan in Dublin.

My journey in Ireland, North and South, proved much longer than I had initially planned. After ten years, however, I cannot imagine myself without a deep attachment to the country.  The warmth of the people I met and the rich history, culture and nature surrounding me all contributed to my deepening love for this country.  It is not just a place where I studied; it is a place that shaped me.

Along with the Irish Studies Summer School in 2014, the MA programme from 2015 to 2016 at the Mitchell Institute became a life-changing experience.  For my MA dissertation, I conducted my first qualitative research in a Loyalist community in Belfast and interviewed women who had lived through ‘the Troubles’.  Although it was daunting for me as an international student at the beginning, I loved meeting new people and listening to their life stories.  It was a transformative experience that shaped my academic and personal growth.

After the MA programme, I worked at the Embassy of Japan in Dublin for two years, from mid-2017 to 2019.  Through the diplomatic lens at the embassy, I witnessed the seismic change in the political dynamics in the islands of Ireland and Great Britain in light of Brexit.  My work experience in Dublin, where I was involved in policy research and analysis, has also expanded my horizons beyond academia.

In September 2019, I re-started my academic journey as a PhD student at the Mitchell Institute, full of excitement, being blessed with a scholarship from a public body in Japan called JASSO to pursue a doctoral degree.

 

PhD Life

My PhD life faced many unexpected challenges, though.  The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we live and the way we do research.  When the lockdown measure was installed in the UK, I was about to begin my fieldwork involving interviews with local mothers.  It became impossible to do in-person meetings and fieldwork, which, at the time, I thought shattered my PhD.  With assistance from my supervisors and the university, I amended my research design and used online platforms for the first few interviews.

In April 2020, my sister called me from Japan and notified me of the sudden passing of our dearest mum.  I flew back to Japan amid the lockdown to attend her funeral and handle the family duties following her death.  I ended up spending five months with my family in Japan, during which we lost our grandmother as well.  It was an emotionally turbulent period that made me reflect on my personal life and family in Japan.

However, with heartful, caring support from my supervisors, Professor John Brewer and Professor Lisa Smyth, my friends and families, along with generous contributions from mothers who participated in my research, I managed to collect an important dataset and write a PhD thesis.  Foregrounding the stories of motherhood in war-torn and ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland, my thesis highlighted the neglected yet significant contributions women played as mothers to social peace processes.  I am deeply grateful to my respondents, who shared insightful stories about their lives in difficult times.  Their voices will continue to be the foundation of my sociological imagination, which I endeavour to carry on as I pursue an academic career. In February 2024, my thesis ‘Motherhood during and after “the Troubles”’ was officially submitted to the university. 

Our cosy attic office at the Institute, hundreds of cups of tea and coffee that fuelled my writing, tons of our favourite McVitie’s Rich Tea Biscuits and Tayto crisps, hours of moans with my friends about the PhD life and the horrible weather, as well as the mountain of books notoriously piled up on my desk, will be dearly missed in the following chapters of my life.  I am indebted to everyone who has enabled me to accomplish my goals on this beautiful, intriguing island.

 

What next?

Graduation this July is not the end of my overseas journey.  I was recently awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and opened a new chapter in my academic life at the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ).  In South Africa, I will be starting a new research project on mothering/motherhood in post-apartheid South Africa and working on publishing my PhD thesis written in Northern Ireland.

After ten years, the island of Ireland has become my second home, and I will surely keep coming back throughout my life.