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Welcome to Volume 8 of New Voices in Japanese Studies (NVJS). This is the second volume we have published since renewing the journal in 2015. In this edition, we are delighted to present six articles by local new voices that engage with a broad range of complex and challenging themes. It is my hope that publication in this journal will stand these authors in good stead, both now and in the years to come.

It has been a distinct pleasure to have Dr Adam Broinowski on board as Guest Editor for this volume. Ten years ago, as a PhD candidate, Dr Broinowski contributed an article to the very first issue of this journal. We are honoured to be able to welcome him back to the journal this year in an editorial capacity, and we are confident in the knowledge that the articles in this volume have benefited from the unflagging dedication, rigour and professionalism that has characterised his engagement with this project from beginning to end. On behalf of the NVJS team, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Broinowski for the time and expertise that he has so generously devoted to shaping this volume. It has been very much a privilege for us to work with him.

Great thanks are also due to the members of this year’s Editorial Advisory Board, who so generously gave of their time to provide feedback on the submissions to this volume. Many of these academics have also loaned their expertise to previous volumes of the journal, and have encouraged postgraduate researchers to submit their work. It is only thanks to the continued support of our local academic community that we are able to produce NVJS, and I am glad of the opportunity to express my heartfelt appreciation for it.

As you may be aware, NVJS has continued to evolve over the past year. Since our last volume was published, we have completed the transfer of back issues onto our current site, so that all articles are now available in full in the one location. We have begun an affiliation with Crossref, which helps to make NVJS articles easier to search, cite and access, and have adopted a Creative Commons licensing model to support greater use of our authors’ articles. Further, we have also renewed our affiliation with the Directory of Open Access Journals, which benefits our authors by its valuable indexing of NVJS and the work within it.

But by far the most important development for NVJS this year is the launch of the New Voices Scholar program. This program supports NVJS authors to present their work at local conferences, thereby providing an additional opportunity to build skills, experience and an academic profile. For this inaugural year, we are proud to support Ross Tunney of the University of Tasmania, whose article, ”Imaging the Rural: Modernity and Agrarianism in Hiroshi Hamaya’s Snow Land Photographs” was published in Volume 7, and Geraldine Carney of Monash University, whose paper, ”Disrupt, Support and Document: The Role of Social Media in International Child Abduction Cases Involving Japan” appears in this volume. It is an honour and a privilege for us to support these outstanding young scholars, and we look forward to continuing this program as an extended platform for future NVJS authors.

The above changes would not have been possible without our Series Editor, Elicia O’Reilly, whose dedication and vision has ensured that NVJS is continually changing for the better. Nor would they have been possible without the enthusiasm and support of Supervising Manager, Ayusa Koshi. They also owe much to Penny Maher, whose incredible efficiency and hard work as Administrative Assistant was responsible for bringing many of them into effect. And here, I would also like to acknowledge our web and layout designer Kevin Vo, whose tireless assistance with matters both technical and visual has enabled us to improve the journal over the past year as well as release this latest volume. I thank each of you most sincerely for your invaluable efforts.

Finally, I wish to thank the authors who chose to submit their work to this volume, and who have shown great discipline and tenacity in responding to feedback and dealing with the challenges of peer-review—many for the first time. Your publication in this volume is all the better for the time and energy that you devoted to the revision phases, and for this I congratulate you heartily. My deep thanks also go to our authors’ academic supervisors, who encouraged them to submit and took the time to recommend their papers to us. And for the authors who, due to the pressures of time, were unable to complete their revisions in this cycle, we look forward to seeing your names in a future issue of NVJS.

Yoshihiro Wada
Director
The Japan Foundation, Sydney
July 2016

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