CURRICULUM VITAE
Education
Graduate
2006: Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology)
Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Canada.
Thesis: Kantō Resident Ainu and the Urban Indigenous Experience
2000: Master of Arts (with Distinction)
Social Anthropology of Development, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. UK.
Thesis: Land, belonging, home: Exploring contested narratives of Ainu identity in Japanese development discourse (Awarded: Distinction)
Undergraduate
1997: Bachelor of Arts with Honours (First Class)
Communications and Image Studies with an Approved Year Abroad University of Kent at Canterbury. UK.
Honours Thesis: Let Us Be Finns: In Search of Finnish Identity (Awarded: Distinction)
Year Abroad Institution
1995-1996: Intercultural Studies Program, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Research Interests
Indigenous Issues (particularly contemporary issues of urbanization, migration and mobility),
Northern Studies,
Resilience,
Identity,
East Asia (with particular focus on Ainu in Japan and Japanese minorities),
Participatory Research.
Languages
Active: Japanese – speaking and reading;
Passive: Spanish – reading.
Positions
Postdoctoral Fellowships
May 2006 – April 2008: Postdoctoral Fellow in the Comparative Study of Indigenous Rights and Identity.
Department of Anthropology and McGill Centre for Society, Technology and Development (STANDD), McGill University.
Research Positions
April 2004 – March 2005: Visiting Scholar
Centre for Japanese Research, Institute of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia.
April 2002 – April 2004: Visiting Researcher and Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholar Institute of International Culture, Showa Women’s University, Tokyo, Japan (conducted fieldwork for doctoral degree in Tokyo and Hokkaido).
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Forthcoming
Hudson, Mark; Lewallen, Ann-Elise and Mark K. Watson (eds.). 2008. Visions of the Ainu: Changing Academic and Public Perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Proposal accepted, manuscript in preparation
Title: Ainu in the City: Indigeneity and Cultural Politics in Japan’s Capital. Under preparation for the Japan Anthropology Workshop Series (JAWS) published by RoutledgeCurzon press.
Journals
In Preparation
Watson, Mark K. 2007. Rera Cise and Ainu Entrepreneurship: Investigating the dynamic potential of cultural heritage for community and economic development. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation – Special edition on Indigenous Entrepreneurship.
Chapters in Books
Watson, Mark K. 2008. Kantō resident Ainu and the Urban Indigenous Experience. In Hudson, Mark; Lewallen, Ann-Elise and Mark K. Watson (eds.), Visions of the Ainu: Changing Academic and Public Perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Hudson, Mark; Lewellen, Ann-Elise and Mark K. Watson. 2008. Introduction. In Hudson, Mark; Lewallen, Ann-Elise and Mark K. Watson (eds.), Visions of the Ainu: Changing Academic and Public Perspectives. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Watson, Mark K. 2007. Indigenous Food and Foodways: Mapping the Production of Ainu Food in Tokyo. In Sidney C. H. Cheung, Chee Beng Tan and Maria Siumi Tam (eds.), Food and Foodways in Asia: Resource, Tradition and Cooking. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 129-142.
Watson, Mark. 2004. Development, Knowledge and the Ainu of Japan. In Rick Riewe et al (eds.), Aboriginal Cultural Geographies. Winnipeg: Aboriginal Issues Press. pp. 49-57.
Conference Proceedings (Symposium Special Edition)
Watson, Mark K. 2005. Tokai ni kurasu senjyumin no hikaku o mezashite: Kantō-ken no Ainu no baai (Towards a Comparative Understanding of Urban Indigenous Peoples: the historical and current significance of Kantō resident Ainu). In Japanese. As a Supplement to Hōsei University Bulletin of Institute of International Japan Studies. Tokyo: Hōsei Daigaku Kokusai Nihongaku Kenkyujyo.
Newsletters, Interviews, and Other Contributions
‘Why is the urban important for Indigenous studies?’ Arts Insight vol.2. McGill University, Faculty of Arts Newsletter. 2007.
‘Mark Watson: Exploring the Urban Indigenous Experience’. University of Alberta Research Profile Project 2006. Available on-line at: http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/researchandstudents/news.cfm?story=47753