Antinuclear activists at the 2017 anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Tokyo, Japan.
vivian shaw is a sociologist, educator, and bagel enthusiast who credits her upbringing in the suburbs of New York City for her love of gluten and appetite for human stories.
Vivian is a College Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and the Lead Researcher (co-PI) for the AAPI COVID-19 Project, a multi-method investigation into the impacts of the pandemic on the lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin with graduate portfolios in Asian American Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies. From 2018-2019, Vivian was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Weatherhead Center for International Relations’ Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, also at Harvard.
Vivian is the author of several articles and chapters, including “Strategies of Ambivalence: Cultures of Liberal Antifa in Japan,” forthcoming in Radical History Review, “‘Extreme Pressure’: Gendered Negotiations of Violence and Vulnerability in Japanese Anti-Racism Movements,” in Critical Asian Studies (2019), and “‘We Are Already Living Together’: Race, Collective Struggle, and the Reawakened Nation in Post-3/11 Japan” in Precarious Belongings: Affect and Nationalism in Asia (2017, Rowman & Littlefield), among other pieces. Vivian’s research has received grants and awards from the National Science Foundation, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (jointly awarded by the Social Science Research Council), the Natural Hazards Center, and other institutions.
Vivian’s interests are in the areas of race, gender, sexuality, and culture, focusing especially on these issues in relation to disasters, the environment, human rights, and social movements. Prior to her time in academia, Vivian worked with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in maternal-child health policy and program administration.
