Chika Watanabe

Dr. Chika Watanabe is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester. She holds a PhD from Cornell University and has conducted postdoctoral research at Yale University. Her work bridges academic research with practical engagement in international aid and disaster preparedness. She co-leads the Patchwork Ethnography initiative, emphasizing interdisciplinary and personal-methodological integration, and collaborates on the Voces de Resiliencia project developing disaster education materials in Chile. She has been recognized with the Humanities Outstanding Teaching Award three times (2020–2022) for innovative pedagogy linking anthropology to real-world issues.

Her research focuses on disaster preparedness through play, intergenerational resilience, and the ethics of aid. Key projects include analyzing disaster cooperation between Japan and Chile, funded by grants from the British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, and JSPS. She has published extensively on topics such as microbial environmentalism, imperialist multispecies relations, and the role of NGOs in Myanmar. Her teaching emphasizes experiential learning, including student-led projects on humanitarianism and development.

Watanabe’s academic contributions span ethnographic methodology, feminist theory, and critical disaster studies. She co-edits a Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute section and has organized international workshops on patchwork ethnography and disaster preparedness. Her book Becoming One (2019) examines Japanese NGOs in Myanmar, while her upcoming work Making Survival Possible explores playful preparedness strategies in Japan and Chile.