Why do people decide to fight for their nations and people? What turns people into supporters of an ideology? I have been intrigued by these questions for two decades now, which has driven me to study the intersection between the nation, the military, and society in East Asia. I found my academic home in the field of history, but am eager to learn other theories and methods that help me better investigate these issues.

In my first monograph, Nation-Empire: Ideology and Rural Youth Mobilization in Japan and Its Colonies (Cornell University Press, December 2018), I examined these questions through the history of youth mobilization by the Japanese empire. In addition to an analysis of the rise of youth discourse and agrarianism, my book presents ethnographical research on villages in northern Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Korea, and comparatively fleshes out a grassroots mechanism of ideological indoctrination. I believe this book is in conversation with many subfields, such as the histories of youth, fascism, the everyday, and emotions.

After publishing Nation-Empire, I switched gears from the empire to the postwar period and to the Korean population in Japan (or "zainichi Koreans"), with the help of KumHee Cho. My second monograph, A Nation Within: North Korean Zainichi in Postimperial Japan (Stanford University Press, March 2026), presents an intimate and gendered history of Chongryon, a community of pro-North Korean zainichi. Based on more than 200 interviews, the book shows how powerful their commitment to a diasporic decolonization project was, and how colonial, postcolonial, national, transnational, and familial dynamics intertwined to produce their energy. Chongryon's hegemonic status among zainichi Koreans not only shaped zainichi society's power politics, but also directly and indirectly influenced Japan's postwar politics. Through these Koreans' lens, I propose to see postwar Japan as "postimperial" Japan. 

Relying on many scholars’ spirit of collective scholarship, I am gradually developing a website, Grassroots Operations of the Japanese Empire: primary sources translated for teaching purposes (japaneseempire.info), which presents a number of primary sources in English translation, along with an expert’s introduction and questions for discussion in each entry. Please contact me if you are interested in contributing a source from your research.

I also organize and moderate Japanese-English bilingual talk series at the Modern Japan History Association, called "New Books from Japan" and "Research Exchange Seminar."

Website: https://www.sayakachatani.com