Assistant Professor
Jieun Cho is a cultural anthropologist of contemporary Japan and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University. Her research focuses on how people live through environmental uncertainty as it intersects with social, material, and bodily precarity. Her current book project examines how families and communities care for biologically vulnerable children in risky environments and reimagine what it means to make life in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Before joining CUHK, she was a Postdoctoral Associate in Asian Climate and Environments at Duke University. Prior to academia, she worked in the IT and energy industries in Korea and Japan.
Educational Background
Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology, Duke University
Contact
Email: jieuncho@cuhk.edu.hk
Research Interests
Everyday Life
Risk and Uncertainty
Family and Kinship
Toxicity and Pollution
Anthropology of Care
Medical Anthropology
Environmental Anthropology
Rural Japan
Selected Publications
| 2025 |
“Ordinary Life: Evacuee Mothers and the Politics of Home in Post-3.11 Japan.” Anthropological Quarterly 98(3) |
| 2024 | “Embodying the Nuclear: The Moral Struggle of Family Care in Post-Fallout Fukushima.” Ethos 52(3) |
| 2024 |
“Nurturing Uncertainty: How Recuperation Retreats Foster Care Communities in Post-Meltdown Japan.” Revaluing Care, April 4 |
| 2023 | “Nuclear Playthings.” Anthropology News 64(5). Special Issue: Energy |
| 2021 | “Time and Life in Fukushima.” Allison, Anne and Jieun Cho. Hot Spots, Fieldsights, May 25 |
| 2020 | “‘We Are Not Robots’: The Stakes of Care in Times of Uncertainty.” NEOS: A Publication of the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group 12(2) |
| 2020 | “Family in the Ruins of Nuclear Risk.” Anthropology News, April 29 |
Editorship
2021-2024 Section Editor, Anthropology News (Society for East Asian Anthropology)
Personal Website