Dr Roslynn Ang

Dr. Roslynn Ang is an educator and scholar in the intersections of Cultural Anthropology, East Asian Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, Media and Performance, and Critical Heritage Studies. She is in a long-term engagement with the Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai (札幌ウポポ保存会), an intangible cultural heritage performance group that focuses on revitalizing Indigenous Ainu song and dance in Japan. Her research interests include performance and media, decolonizing methodology, indigeneity, representations of race and nation, and Japan’s global colonial history. She produced a podcast series and an online K12 educator workshop when she was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence fellow at the Center for East Asian Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington. She had taught core curriculum courses to a diverse classroom that included non-native English speakers when she was a Global Perspectives on Society Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University Shanghai. She is currently a co-PI in an international research group for “Cross-border Action Heritage for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-islands Diplomacies in the Asian Pacific Rim” with a 3-year grant from the Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU). Her publications have appeared in the International Journal of Cultural Policy, The Museum in Asia (Routledge), and Frontiers of Memory in the Asia-Pacific (HK University Press). She has lived and worked in Singapore, China, Japan, and the USA.

For more details: https://www.roslynnang.com 

Courses taught: 

Undergraduate courses:

• Globalization, Culture, and Identity
• Japanese Mass Media
• Culture and Heritage: Perspectives from History
• Public and Applied History
• Minorities in the Socio-cultural History of Japan
• Japan and China: Cultural, Political and Population Flows
• Global Perspectives on Society

Graduate courses:

• Selected Topics in Trans-Japanese Visual Cultures
• Managing Creative Industries: The Case of Japan”

Dr. Ang's research explores different aspects of representations across various media, specifically on how it is produced, managed, negotiated, and challenged. Her work originated in the representations of Okinawans in mainstream Japanese television series, newspaper reportage, and indie manga. Her following project centers on the global representations of the Ainu in museums, which range from the production process of artifact collection, management, curation, reception, and reparations. She is currently involved in various cultural revitalization and memorialization projects, with a focus on the role of digital media and material spaces for Intangible Cultural Heritage. Her upcoming project explores the Indigenous rights to fish for salmon, environmental sustainability, and the salmon ritual for the Ainu.

Her academic expertise includes Media Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, Heritage Studies, Settler Colonial Studies, and East Asian Studies.

Dr. Ang's work is centered on decolonizing methodologies to build ethical collaboration and responsibility to stakeholders, especially disempowered communities, Indigenous Peoples, and silenced voices. She uses mainly qualitative research, including discourse analysis, ethnography (e.g., participant observation), long-form interviews, and archival research. 

Book project: Haunting Engagements: Life within/beyond Japanese Settler Space-Time. 

“Cross-border Action Heritage for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-islands Diplomacies in the Asian Pacific Rim.” (The Korean National Commission for UNESCO), in collaboration with scholars from the National Taiwan University and Tokyo University.

Workshop facilitator & UKRI grant proposal team: “The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Environmental and Heritage Conservation,” University of Leicester. 

2025 “Unequally interdependent: Ainu social resilience within Japan settler-nation multicultural discourse.” The International Journal of Cultural Policy.

2025 “Swapping Time between Contemporary Ainu and Kaitaku Settler Colonial History.” In The Museum in Asia. Routledge

2022 "Whose Difficult Heritage? Contesting Indigenous Ainu Representations" in Frontiers of Memory in the Asia-Pacific: Difficult Heritage and the Transnational Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism Hong Kong University Press

2021   “Indigenous Art in the context of Settler Colonialism.”「定居殖民主义背景下的原住民艺术」信睿周报 The Thinker , Volume 48, Citic Press Group, re-published with English translation in「谁来定义原住民艺术：东亚的定居殖民主义」结绳志 TYING KNOTS
 

2021 「「無」としてのマイノリティー――不可視の内なる他者」桑山　編著『人類学者は異文化をどう体験したか』ミネルヴァ書房

2019 “Indigenous Survival Politics in the Promotion of a National Discourse.” Anthropology News. 60(5) pp. e183 – e188.

2019   “Association of Critical Heritage Studies: Heritage Across Borders.” Fabrications 29(1), p.112–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2019.1534311

2016   “Time, space and the museum: A study on Hokkaido Museum’s theme two” (時空間と博物館の視座：北海道博物館テーマ２を事例として), Hokkaido Ethnological Society; Hokkai Gakuen University, Japan. Vol 12, p.78-80

• Ethics of art and heritage management
• Cultural sustainability and heritage revitalization
• Reparations and decolonization
• Policies on Indigenous Peoples
• Management of environment and resources (for art and heritage)
• Art and politics / capitalisms
• The politics of representations 

2025                           Volunteer mentor, U.S. Embassy Singapore- ITE Alumni Mentoring Program (USEAMP)

2024                           NCTA Critical Studies Short Course for a K12 educator workshop: “Indigenous Cultures in Settler Colonial East Asia” (Producer)

2024                           Podcast: Indigenous Asia (Producer, researcher and interviewer)

2021                           Translator: Ainu Association of Hokkaido, “Anticipating the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics & Paralympics” 

2019                           Organizer: Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai in NYU Shanghai. Intangible cultural heritage workshop and media collaboration with Interactive Media Arts (IMA) students. https://ainusapporoupopoho.wixsite.com/sapporoupopohozonkai

2018                           Organizer and moderator: Screening of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Asako I & II” and discussion with director (NYU Shanghai)

2014 – present          Member: “Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai” (Sapporo Upopo Preservation Society), Official Ainu traditional performance group, National and UNESCO Intangible Heritage

2008                           Interpreter and Translator: Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir 2008

Arts Projects that touch on these topics:

• Physical and digital projects that work with communities and their cultural heritage
• Museums (conceptualization, research, planning, design, etc.)
• Difficult or Dark Heritage, production of contested memories
• Social impact, community empowerment, or engagement
• Intangible cultural heritage, traditional crafts, and knowledge
• Cultural and heritage transmission and/or revitalization

2025 – 27       “Cross-border Action Heritage for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-islands Diplomacies in the Asian Pacific Rim.” The Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU), (co-PI)

2023 – 24       Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, Institute of International Education, USA

2024               International Joint Research Grants on Transnational Heritage, The Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU), (co-PI)

2023               HSS Seed Fund, National University of Singapore (co-PI)

2021               UKRI grant, University of Leicester (researcher, co-author)

2017               East Asian Studies Travel Grant, New York University

2016 – 18       Provost's Global Research Initiatives, NYU at Berlin, Shanghai and Washington D.C.

2016               East Asian Studies Summer Research Travel Grant, New York University

2013               GSAS Dean's Student Travel Grant, New York University

2010 – 2016  MacCracken Doctoral Fellowship, New York University

2006 – 2009  Monbukagakusho (MEXT- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology - Japan) Masters Program Scholarship 

2002 – 2003  Okinawa Prefecture Language Scholarship, The University of the Ryukyus (One year language exchange)