Research & Supervisory Interests

Two major questions motivate my research: what are the effects of social inclusion and exclusion on well-being, and how do social relationships shape bodily experience? I bring together three domains that generally are understood separately - kinship, medical anthropology, and semiotics - to examine how past and present social relationships are experienced in visceral, embodied terms.

In Japan, my research focuses on the stakes of disconnection from family networks. I conduct ethnographic research at children's homes, with foster and adoptive families, and with networks of youth who grew up in state care, as well as research on infertility treatment. More broadly, I explore how kinship ideologies articulate with discourses of Japanese national and cultural identity, and how these discourses shape understandings of what is "normal." I further examine how these concepts of normalcy are caught up in global circuits of knowledge surrounding human development, child rights, and concepts of "care" under the rubric of social welfare.

Teaching and research interests: kinship and relatedness; embodied experience; social determinants of health and well-being; semiotics; engaged anthropology; Japanese and East Asian studies; memory and trauma; mental health; anthropological studies of neurology and brain development; child welfare; anthropology of social work and social welfare.