This lecture has ended. Thank you to everyone who attended. For a report on the day, please see the event report.

As a special event of the 99th May Festival and the second in its series "Thinking About Ethnic and National Questions," the Society for the Studies of Nation Issues will hold the Special Lecture "Outlaws of the Frontier: Southeast Asia's Scam Zones Today." In addition to students, faculty, and staff of the University, members of the public are warmly welcome.

Overview

Event	Series "Thinking About Ethnic and National Questions," Second Special Lecture "Outlaws of the Frontier: Southeast Asia's Scam Zones Today"
Date and time	Sunday, May 17, 2026, 12:30–15:30 (planned)
Venue	Ichijo Hall, Yayoi Campus
Speakers	Mr. Minetoshi Yasuda (nonfiction writer) Mr. Hideyuki Takano (nonfiction writer)
Open to	Students, faculty, and staff of the University, and the general public
Fee	Free * A limited number of priority seats, online viewing, and the archive recording are available for a fee.
Organizers	Organized by: May Festival Special Lecture Executive Committee, Society for the Studies of Nation Issues Co-organized by: Myanmar Study Group, Society for the Studies of Nation Issues

Aims and Purpose

Background

In mainland Southeast Asia, especially in the border regions of Myanmar and Cambodia, "scam zones" (such as KK Park) beyond the reach of state authority have become a matter of concern for the international community. These areas are not merely hotbeds of crime; they form a peculiar space where complex ethnic conflicts, vacuums of state function, and the structural distortions of the global economy intersect.

In general news coverage, however, fragmentary events tend to be consumed, and there are not enough opportunities to analyze their historical background and social structure systematically from an academic perspective.

Purpose

This lecture is held as the second in the series "Thinking About Ethnic and National Questions" and as a special event of the 99th May Festival. We have invited two speakers: Mr. Minetoshi Yasuda, an expert on social issues in China and Southeast Asia, and Mr. Hideyuki Takano, who has explored unrecognized states and non-state territories in the peripheries of the world.

We will shed light on the realities of the social spaces formed by actors who have broken away from the framework of the state, and reconsider governance and the dynamics of ethnic groups in borderlands, as well as the relationship between the state and the individual. At the May Festival, an open venue for sharing scholarship, we aim to offer participants a perspective from which to analyze and reflect structurally on the problems of border regions in today's international affairs.