Tomoko Sakai, PhD

is a Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, Japan. Her research explores everyday physical experiences, particularly in turbulent and hazardous contexts such as armed conflict, environmental pollution, or disasters. She has conducted fieldwork in Britain, Ireland, and the North-Eastern part of Japan. She currently investigates people's entanglement with surrounding living and non-living entities through everyday practices in altered or polluted environments. She also writes about impurity, uncleanliness, and disorder in everyday contexts, especially focusing on their physical and spatial aspects.