Sarah Hyde

Sarah Hyde joined the Uni of Kent in 2003 from the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield where she taught for a year after being an undergraduate there nine years before. Sarah first went to Japan on a school exchange in 1984 and ever since then has been fascinated with the country.

She has long standing links with Okayama where she did her MA and in particular with the veteran Diet Member, Satsuki Eda, who has been speaker of the Upper House. As part of her doctorate she spent a year working for the Okayama Democratic Party of Japan election campaign.

She returns to Japan most summers in order to meet with local and national level politicians and unionists. In 2010 she gained a British Academy small grant for her trip. She is responsible for the BA in Politics and International Relations with a Year in Japan.

She works with the Japan Politics Group, a national small group doing research on Japanese Politics and International Relations. She is currently working on the governmental and political implications on the future of Japan after the 3/11 earthquake.