Fellows’ Summer Research Considers the Anthropocene in Madagascar, Japan, and Birmingham, Alabama

Jieun Cho’s research will take her to Japan this summer, where she will be meeting with refugees and returnees of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. “I will continue to work with the nuclear-affected, as well as scientists, lawyers, and activists, to see how low-level exposure to radiation is made sense of in different fields.” One of Cho’s specific areas of interest is residents living in irradiated environments who are caretakers of children. She plans to work with a group of citizen-scientists studying this sub-group and in so doing, “think about how ‘exposure’ is complicated through practices on the ground. This will help me to understand the specific contexts and constraints of care work, and how caregiving becomes (im)possible through loose connections in degrading environments, both social and ecological.” Her summer fellowship will enable Jieun to visit multiple locations in Japan, “which is crucial for a study of mobile populations. Thinking through ethnographic materials, I hope to join the broader conversation about cultures of science, social justice, and human agency in the Anthropocene.”

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