Postdoctoral Associate
Jieun Cho earned her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University, specializing in gender, environment, and disaster. Her research, titled 'Anxious Care: Radioactive Uncertainty and the Politics of Life in Post-Nuclear Japan,' investigates how middle-class families navigate the challenges of raising healthy children amidst the uncertainties of radiation risk in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
Various stages of her work have been funded by the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Graduate School at Duke University. Since 2021, she has also been a Contributing Editor of the Society for East Asian Anthropology section of Anthropology News. Before joining academia, she worked in the IT and energy industries in Korea and Japan.
As a postdoctoral researcher, she seeks to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on social reproduction, toxic ecologies, and environmental futures from the perspective of post-Cold War East Asia.
Get to know Dr. Jieun Cho:
Publications
Cho, J. (2024). Embodying the nuclear: The moral struggle of family care in postfallout Japan. Ethos, 52(3), 349–365. https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12440
Abstract
This paper examines the moral struggle of family care by focusing on parents’ efforts to raise “healthy” children in irradiated environments of Fukushima following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Drawing on fieldwork between 2017 and 2020, it explores the lived experiences of primary caretakers, mostly mothers, as they strive to cultivate “health” in their children while negotiating conflicting logics of radiological exposure, risk assessment, and gendered childcare. Central to this endeavor is what I call an ethical labor of “balancing:” the daily negotiation between protecting children and allowing them to live fully in risk‐laden environments. Emphasizing intercorporeal and interpersonal aspects of embodied care, the paper examines the nuanced ways in which three mothers recalibrate notions of health, personhood, and responsibility to safeguard their children's everyday lives. Such notions of “health” carry significant implications for family dynamics amid the uncertainties of postdisaster life. By highlighting the critical role of family care in potentially stigmatizing environments, the paper advocates for developing frameworks that address the real‐life complexities of making life in an increasingly compromised world.
Courses Taught at APSI
Spring 2025: EAS 590S—Critical Animal Studies
Spring 2024: EAS590S—The Asian Anthropocene