ann-elise lewallen

lewallen is a scholar-activist committed to environmental justice work with Indigenous and grassroots communities in East and South Asia. A cultural anthropologist and Japanologist by training, she partners with transnational activist networks focused on decolonial mapping, ecosystem health, and restoring Indigenous Land relations. In her 2016 book, The Fabric of Indigeneity: Contemporary Ainu Identity and Gender in Colonial Japan (School for Adv. Research Press), lewallen analyzes Indigenous Ainu women’s use of ancestral textiles to counter Japanese settler colonialism and assert Ainu Indigeneity. Her book-in-progress, Sovereign Bodies: Energy Futures and Defying the State in India and Japan, examines transnational partnerships between Japanese and Indian civil society, and efforts to steer aid diplomacy to guide India’s burgeoning energy sector toward sustainable energy futures. In her recent community mapping project, Healing Forests (Storymap), she is supporting an Indigenous counter-mapping initiative focusing on traditional healthcare and forest biodiversity to re-vitalize community health in northeast India.