Associate Professor and Associate Dean at University of Utah
About
Annie Isabel Fukushima, PhD is associate professor in the Ethnic Studies Division in the School for Cultural & Social Transformation, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at University of Utah. She was previously a Mellon postdoctoral associate with the Institute for Research and Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University (2013–2015). She earned her PhD in ethnic studies with a designated emphasis in women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Fukushima is the author of the award-winning book, Migrant Crossings (Stanford University Press, 2019), which examines Asians and Latinas/os trafficked in the United States. The methods are interdisciplinary, taking the reader on a journey through the examination of dualities surrounding citizenship, legality, and victimhood that shape current anti-violence narratives and practices. To answer who is visible as a trafficking subject, she takes the reader on a journey through case studies of gendered industries in informal sectors and regulated industries, from scams to domestic work to sexual economies. Fukushima received the American Sociological Association book award on Asian America (2020).
Her publications also include scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited books, including the following: "Challenges to Reintegration," (Feminist Criminology, 2021), "Food Matters" (Journal of Human Rights Practice, 2020), "Witnessing in a time of homeland futurities (Anti-Trafficking Review 2020), "What's the Mission?" (Journal of Human Rights & Social Work 2020), "Multiplicity of Stigma" (International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare 2020), "Essential Latinx Educators" (Latinx Talk 2020), "Has someone taken your passport?" (Biography 2019), and chapters in The Subject(s) of Human Rights (2019), Documenting Gendered Violence (2015), and Human Trafficking Reconsidered (2014).
She has served as a special issue editor for Anti-Trafficking Review, "Education" (2021) and Frontier: Journal of Women's Studies (2020)
She is committed to praxis, the practice of theory, therefore has served as the human trafficking expert witness and provides expert reports for human trafficking related cases in criminal, civil and immigration courts.
Current Work:
She is the Co-Principal Investigator and Project Lead for the Gender-Based Violence Consortium (gbvc.utah.edu). Dr. Fukushima also collaborates with the Institute of (Im)Possible Subjects to facilitate "Migratory Times" - a series of pedagogical events, art exhibitions, research clusters, and online activities where migration is central to the discussion.
Research Area(s):
Ethnic studies, gender studies, migration, violence, transnational feminism