Japanese Diaspora in a WWII Incarceration Camp: Archaeology of Gila River
Research Talk by Dr. Koji Lau-Ozawa
Tuesday, April 2nd from 4 PM - 5 PM at Hart Hall 3201
Talk Description:
In the 21st century, the movement of people around the globe and the use of camps to contain and control populations are both on the rise. Consequently, the importance of understanding how diasporas and camp technologies act on one another has increased. In this talk I discuss the use of government violence on racialized populations, focusing on the Gila River Incarceration Camp which held over 16,000 people of Japanese descent on a Native American reservation during WWII. Applying community-based, interdisciplinary, and decolonizing methodologies, I look to the complex interactions between camp structures, diasporic communities, and Indigenous lands.
Bio:
Koji Lau-Ozawa is a UC Chancellors Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, and a descendant of incarcerees from the Gila River Incarceration Camp. He received his PhD at Stanford University in Anthropology, with his dissertation focusing on the archaeology of the Gila River Incarceration Camp. He earned his Master in Anthropology at San Francisco State University, and his undergraduate degree in Archaeology and Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.