An anthropologist working at the intersection of race, gender, disability, and mental illness, Karen Nakamura uses a range of avenues to share her research, including books, films, photography, and teaching.
Nakamura is the Robert and Colleen Haas Distinguished Chair in Disability Studies and professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on disability rights, transgender rights, and other minority social movements in contemporary Japan.
“While I don’t think it’s reasonable to think that the United States will ever be as progressive [as] Japan regarding disabilities, I do think there’s still much we can learn from other countries,” said Nakamura, who takes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to her work. “That’s the point of anthropology.”
Nakamura was born in Indonesia and grew up in Australia, Japan, and the United States. She has received several honors for her work, including the John Whitney Hall Book Prize, the SVA Short Film Award, and the David Plath Media Award.
