Dr Chika Watanabe

Biography

I received my PhD in anthropology from Cornell University in 2013 and held a Postdoctoral Associate position in the Inter-Asia Program at Yale University in 2013-2014. I have also worked with various development, emergency relief, and other NGOs since 2002 and continue to hold an interest in international aid work from both academic and practitioner perspectives. I also completed an MSc in Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford in 2005.

I am also undertaking a project with fellow anthropologists around the concept of 'patchwork ethnography'. Check out our webpage https://www.patchworkethnography.com/ and follow us on Twitter @PatchworkEthno. 

Social responsibility

Engaged Anthropology

First funded by the Social Responsibility in the Curriculum Award in 2016-7 and now ongoing, my class 'The Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism' revolves around a final visit from professionals in development and humanitarian aid. Students work in groups corresponding to the topics of expertise of each visitor and create a blog entry, where they explain how they think that anthropological analysis can help us understand development and humanitarian issues better. See their outstanding work here: https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/anthropology-of-aid/.