HATSUMI, Kaori

Department of Foreign Language StudiesAssociate Professor

ProfileMy research interests include the relationship between the social sciences, colonialism, and neoliberalism in Japan, with a special focus on the discipline of anthropology, ethics, and ethnography. As a PI of the research project, entitled “Sri Lanka's Civil War and Japan's Development-Craze: An Ethnography of Illness and Environmental, Response and Regeneration,” I collaborate with Sri Lankan filmmakers to trace the trajectories of Japan’s oversea development aid and Sri Lanka’s biggest illigation and settlement scheme, the Mahaveli Development Project (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), JSPS, Apr, 2024 - Mar, 2029). I also collaborate with Indigenous anthropologists and writers to to lend a voice to the suffering of Indigenous communities whose ancestral remains are yet to be retrieved and buried.

Degree

  • Ph.D. (Anthropology), Columbia University, Oct. 2012
  • M.Phil. (Anthropology), Columbia University, Feb. 2009
  • B.A. (Sociology), Hitotsubashi University, Mar. 2003

Research Keyword

  • South Asia, War, Affliction and Trauma, Morality and Ethics, Mobilities

Field of study

  • Humanities & social sciences, Local studies, Area studies
  • Humanities & social sciences, Religious studies, Religious studies
  • Humanities & social sciences, Gender studies, Gender
  • Humanities & social sciences, Cultural anthropology and folklore

Career

  • 01 Apr. 2021 - 30 Sep. 2022
    Kyushu University, Public Relations Initiative, Associate Director for Scientific Promotion (Science Communicator)
  • 01 Aug. 2015 - 31 Dec. 2015
    Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame (USA), Department of Global Studies, Visiting Assistant Professor
  • 01 Jul. 2012 - 31 May 2015
    Kalamazoo College (USA), Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Visiting Assistant Professor
  • 01 Sep. 2011 - 31 May 2012
    Columbia University (USA), Department of Anthropology, Graduate Teaching Assistant
  • 01 Sep. 2006 - 31 May 2008
    Columbia University (USA), Department of Anthropology, Graduate Teaching Assistant

Educational Background

  • 01 Sep. 2005 - 31 May 2012, Columbia University, Department of Anthropology, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
  • 01 Apr. 2003 - 31 Mar. 2007, Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Social Sciences
  • 01 Apr. 1999 - 31 Mar. 2003, Hitotsubashi University, Department of Sociology

Award

Papers

Books and other publications

Lectures, oral presentations, etc.

  • Japan and Sri Lanka: Neoliberalism, the fear of the Wild Man, visual media, the silencing, conscience, and disaster
    Kaori Hatsumi
    The Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, Sep. 2024
  • Academia and Cannibalism: My response to Mai Ishihara’s Preface to Antíkoni by Beth Piatote
    Kaori Hatsumi
    The 58th Annual Conference of Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, Sapporo, June 16, 2024., Jun. 2024
  • ★Roundtable: Storying Otherwise: On the Possibilities of Creative Ethnographic Writing
    Kaori Hatsumi
    The American Anthropological Association & The Canadian Anthropology Society (AAA/CASCA) Annual Meeting, Nov. 2023
  • ★Storying Otherwise: Ethnography in Graphic Novels
    Kaori Hatsumi
    The 36th Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, Kobe, September 24., Sep. 2023
  • Abandoned Bodies and Absent Burial in Northern Sri Lanka
    The 35th Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, Tokyo, September 24-25., Sep. 2022, 日本南アジア学会
  • Grief and Amnesty among Catholic Tamil Mukkuvars of Sri Lanka
    The ACLS Workshop on Historical Trauma and Social Healing, Haverford College Center for Arts and Humanities, Apr. 2022, ACLS, Invited
  • Book publication seminar, "Hallelujah Fishers: An ethnography of war and faith in a Tamil fishing village in Sri Lanka," (Kaori Hatsumi 2021)
    KINDAS Sri Lanka Studies, Feb. 2022, 南アジア地域研究事業（INDAS-South Asia）京都大学拠点, Invited
  • Tamil Mourning, The Longue Durée of Catholicism, and Healing in Northern Sri Lanka
    South Asia and Indian Ocean Studies Seminar, Kyoto University, Feb. 2018, South Asia and Indian Ocean Studies Seminar, Kyoto University, Invited
  • The Challenge of Regulating Religion in Contemporary India: Secularism, Anti-Conversion Law, and Caste
    Michigan State University, The Department of Religious Studies, Dec. 2015, Michigan State University, The Department of Religious Studies, Invited
  • Public Space or God’s Temple? - Ghar Wapsi, Pentecostalism, and conflicts over the Dalit body
    Annual Conference on South Asia - Madison, WI, Oct. 2015, Annual Conference on South Asia - Madison, WI
  • “Hallelujah People: the Catholic Easter Rite, Evil, and Religious Sensibility of Tamil Fishers in Sri Lanka
    The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) Biennial Meeting, Apr. 2015, The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR)
  • Anthropological and Social Justice Perspectives on the End of Eelam War and Its Aftermath.
    Canadian Tamil Congress (Scarborough Civic Centre, Toronto), Sep. 2013, Canadian Tamil Congress, Invited
  • ★Antigone in Sri Lanka
    The 9th Annual Conference on Tamil Studies, May 2013, University of California, Berkeley, Invited
  • ★Manik Farm Camp and Belonging: Citizenship, Memory and Identity in Postwar Sri Lanka
    Tamil Studies Conference at the University of Toronto, 2013, Tamil Studies Conference at the University of Toronto

Courses

  • South Asia in Global Context
    Kalamazoo College
  • Introduction to Society and Culture
    Kalamazoo College
  • Ethnographic Methods
    Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame
  • People and Nature
    Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame
  • Sociology of Religion
    Kalamazoo College
  • Understanding Violence
    Kalamazoo College
  • Language and Culture
    Kalamazoo College
  • Language, Culture & Society
    Kalamazoo College

Academic society affiliations

  • Dec. 2024
    Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA)
  • The Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology
  • The Japanese Association for South Asia Studies
  • American Ethnological Society
  • American Anthropological Association

Research Themes