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.

Social responsibility

Engaged Anthropology

1) In Social Anthropology, we have been running pre-university courses for Year 12 and 13 students in the Manchester area to introduce them to anthropological perspectives on the world and to give students a sense of what university would be like, when such opportunities might not be readily available to them. The School recruits students who fit certain criteria (see www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/connect/schools-and-colleges/courses/). The course consists of 2-hour sessions over 6 weeks and the students who successfully complete it receive a 20 UCAS point reduction if they apply for an undergraduate degree in the School of Social Sciences. Undergraduate Social Anthropology students who are interested in improving access to higher education and enthusiastic about anthropology have also helped deliver part of these sessions.

2) Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism module. First funded by the Social Responsibility in the Curriculum Award in 2016-7 and now ongoing, the class revolves around a final visit from 5 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/.