Chisato Nonaka is an Associate Professor in the International Student Center, Kyushu University, Japan. Her research interests include issues of linguistic, racial, ethnic, national, class and gender-related identities, particularly in transnational education contexts.

In this far-reaching new study of the internationalization of Japanese Higher Education, Chisato Nonaka uses akogare as both an analytical lens and the object of enquiry, and ultimately reconceptualises it as the creation of a space where individuals negotiate and transcend their ethnic, national, racial, gender or linguistic identities.