Virtual Works-In-Progress
with
Ina Kim, Ph.D. candidate
Department of Anthropology at UCI
Making "abnormal" bodies for care: Irradiated bodies and medicalization in post-nuclear Japan
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
4:00-5:00pm
Although the long-term effects of low-level radiation contamination to bodies is still controversial, low-level radiation exposure has been naturalized even after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Through an ethnographic study of citizen radiation detection labs in Japan, I explore how the idea of irradiated bodies has been normalized by the neoliberal Japanese nation-state and global nuclear industry. By investigating radiation contamination in bones, teeth, and urine, citizens both question the ideas and practices surrounding "normal" bodies and suggest alternative healthcare for those excluded from the national healthcare system.
Ina Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. She received her B.A. and M.A. in anthropology at Seoul National University. Her research and teaching focuses on ecological imaginary, medical anthropology, data ethnography, energy politics, nuclear disaster, and Japan.