CV
EDUCATION
2018 Ph.D. East Asian Studies
New York University
Dissertation: “Performing Absence and Presence: Settler Gaze and Indigenous Be-ing in Japan.”
2009 M.A. Human Sciences, Sociology
Hokkaido University
2004 B.A. Upper Second Honours, Japanese Studies and Sociology/Anthropology
National University of Singapore
FELLOWSHIP AND GRANTS
2023-24 Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, Indiana University Bloomington
2017 NYU East Asian Studies Travel Grant
2016 – 18 Provost's Global Research Initiatives, NYU at Berlin, Shanghai and Washington D.C.
2016 NYU East Asian Studies Summer Research Travel Grant
2013 NYU GSAS Dean's Student Travel Grant
2012 NYU East Asian Studies Summer Research Travel Grant
2010 – 2016 NYU MacCracken Doctoral Fellowship
2006 – 2009 Monbukagakusho (MEXT- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology - Japan) Masters Program Scholarship
2002 – 2003 Okinawa Prefecture Language Scholarship, The University of the Ryukyus (One year language exchange)
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
2019 “Indigenous Survival Politics in the Promotion of a National Discourse.” Anthropology News. 60(5) pp. e183 – e188. https://doi.org/10.1111/AN.1260
2017 “Recursions of colonial desire for differences through the doubly erased and/or hypervisible Ainu,” New Ideas in East Asian Studies (2017) Special Edition, pp.8-16, British Association for Japanese Studies
BOOK CHAPTERS
2021 “Mu to shite no Mainoritei - Fukashi no Uchinaru Tasha.” In Kuwayama, Takami (Ed.). Jinruigakusha wa Ibunka wo dō Taiken shitaka: 16 no Firudo Kara. Minerva Shobo. (“The Invisible but Intimate Other.” In Kuwayama, Takami (Ed.). How do Anthropologists Encounter Foreign Cultures: From Sixteen Fields. Minerva Shobo)
2022 “Whose heritage?: Contesting representations of the Indigenous Ainu.” In Huang, Shumei and Lee, Hyun Kyung (Ed.). Frontiers of Memory in the Asia-Pacific: Difficult Heritage and the Transnational Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism. Hong Kong University Press
Forthcoming
2024 “Swapping Time between Contemporary Ainu and Kaitaku Settler Colonial History.” In Cai, Yunci (Ed.). The Museum in Asia. Routledge
REPORTS/COMMENTARIES/BOOK REVIEWS/INTERVIEWS
2022 “The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Environmental and Heritage Conservation” with Cai et. al.https://doi.org/10.25392/leicester.data.19430453.v1
2021 “Book review of Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation, Brokerage, and Representation in Malaysia, by Y. Cai. London: Routledge, 2020.” International Journal of Asian Studieshttps://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000450
2021 “Indigenous Art in the context of Settler Colonialism.” (定居殖民主义背景下的原住民艺术), Interview, 信睿周报The Thinker, Volume 48, Citic Press Group
2020 “Indigeneity that Unsettles Japan’s Settler Society: From the Perspective of the Everyday” (日本の入植型植民社会を揺らす先住民族：日常と非日常の視点から)、Identity and Cultural Icons in a Multicultural World : Ethnicity, language, nation, p.149 – 150. Hokkaido University Graduate School of Media and Communication. https://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/handle/2115/77221
2019 “Association of Critical Heritage Studies: Heritage Across Borders.” Fabrications 29(1), p.112–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2019.1534311
2016 “Time, space and the museum: A study on Hokkaido Museum’s theme two” (時空間と博物館の視座：北海道博物館テーマ２を事例として), Hokkaido Ethnological Society; Hokkai Gakuen University, Japan. Vol 12, p.78-80
INVITED TALKS
2024 “Complicating Resistance and Compliance: Strategies of Indigenous Ainu Survival in Everyday Spaces." Anthropology, Purdue University, U.S.A
2021 “Contextualizing Ainu Art in Japanese Settler Colonialism.” Newcomb Art Department, Tulane University, U.S.A
2021 “Hearing the Silenced: Ainu Cultural Performance in/against Japanese Settler Normativity.” Indigenous East Asia Symposium Series; East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University, U.S.A
2020 “Why are we talking about race if it’s not real.” Committee on Critical Inquiry, New York University Shanghai
2019 日本の入植型植民社会を揺らす先住民族：日常と非日常の視点から (Indigeneity that Unsettles Japan’s Settler Society: From the Perspective of the Everyday). School of Education, Hokkaido University, Japan.
2018 “Ghosts of the Emperor Past and Ainu Future: Traditional Ainu Performances of Revival, Survival and Transformation.” Japanese Studies Department, National University of Singapore. Seminar Series.
2016 “Desirable Differences: Making the Familiar Strange and Uncomfortable.” Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University.
2015 “Ainu: Repatriation of Ancestral Remains.” Indigenous International Repatriation Exhibition; Association on American Indian Affairs Travelling exhibition; Opening remarks; New York University, U.S.A.
2015 文化の多様な側面：アイヌ「文化」を考えて (The many faces of culture: Thinking about Ainu “culture”). From the Voices of Young Ainu - Seminar series on introduction to Ainu Studies; Sapporo Jiyuu Gakkō Yū. Sapporo, Japan.
CONFERENCE
2024 “The liminal researcher in multiple (settler) colonizing empires” Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Asia: Yogyakarta, Indonesia
2023 “Unsettling Social Media: Resisting Settler Memories in Japan” Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Asia: Daegu, South Korea
2022 “Political and Legal Anthropology Under Review: An Invitation to Re-Think Our Parameters” Roundtable, American Anthropological Association (AAA)
2020 “Negotiating Settler Appropriation: Beyond the National Ainu Museum oxymoron.” Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS): University College London, U.K.
2019 “Decolonizing Heritage: From Settler-consumers to Co-producers.” The Thirteenth International Conference of Young Researchers in Heritage, The Concept(s) of Heritage, Australian National University, Canberra.
2019 “Rendering Familiar Spaces Uncanny: Ainu Ghosts and the Haunting of Settler Japan.” International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES Inter-Congress), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland.
2019 “Unsettling Representations of the (In)Visible: Performing Indigeneity Online.” Society for East Asian Anthropology Regional Conference: Waseda University, Japan.
2018 “Cross-border Reworking on Difficult Memories and Places in Asia.” Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS): Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
2017 “Museum Wars: Situating Curators, Anthropologists and Ainu Informant in Japan and Beyond.” American Anthropological Association (AAA): Washington D.C.
2016 “Institutional Danger and Safe Spaces: Strategies of Urban Ainu.” Cultural Typhoon in Europe: University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
2016 “A Time to Sing: The Affect of Dominant Norms and Production of the Self.” Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA); University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawai’i.
2015 “Jikukan to Hakubutsukan no Shiza: Hokkaido Hakubutsukan Tema2 wo Jirei to Shite” (“Time, space and the museum: A study on Hokkaido Museum’s theme 2”). Hokkaido Ethnological Society; Hokkai Gakuen University, Japan.
2013 “Ainu-puri: Beyond the reification of a dichotomous self.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society (IACS); National University of Singapore, Singapore.
2008 “Constructing difference and its power relations: Public representations of the Ainu.” Hokkaido Sociological Association; Asahikawa, Japan.
Organized Panels
2021 (Symposium series) Heritage Justice – Race & Heritage; Decolonizing Heritage; Heritage & Migration; Trauma & Conflict; Climate Change & Heritage Resilience. Association of Critical Heritage Studies, Early Career Researchers Network
2020 (Panel) Rethinking Settler Colonialism and Indigenous heritage in Asia. Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS): University College London, London, U.K.
2018 (Roundtable) A Critical or not-so-critical Force? Borders of Critical Heritage Studies in Practice. Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS): Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
2018 (Panel) Traversing disciplinary borders – theories, methods and ethics for interdisciplinary critical heritage research. Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS): Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.