Takanari Fujita / 藤田 高成
PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada
Research keywords: Vietnam, Hanoi, city, building(s), materiality, architecture, planning, state, socialism, more-than-human, ontological anthropology
I am an anthropologist currently based in Canada. My anthropological sensibility has been cultivated in Japan, Vietnam, UK, US, Canada, and some other regions of Asia. My current research addresses the materiality of urban space and urban structures of the city of Hanoi, Vietnam, particuarly through an ethnographic study of socialist collective housing quarters (locally called khu tập thể or nhà tập thể). Buildings in urban settings, especially modernist buildings, are generally regarded as products of design acts of various rigor, standard, and scale. This is a human-centric view of the materiality of the city. My research puts this assumption to critical scrutiny by drawing on ethnographic findings about how buildings and spaces unxpectedly transform in their own trajectories, sometimes untethered to and even betraying the design intentions of the human stakeholders involved in the making and use of those buildings and spaces. This insight lies at the intersection of the social (practices of designing and using built environment) and the material (unexpected malleability and intransigence of buildings and spaces). This is also an ethnographic and anthropological insight: while it is tightly tied to the context of socialist Vietnam, it also has immense potential to illuminate the general human nature in relation to the nature of materiality. I am planning to build upon this research to launch, after my PhD, a new research project on socialist planning in Vietnam.
Publications
Fujita, T. 2023. Review of Building socialism: the afterlife of East German architecture in urban Vietnam, by Christina Schwenkel. Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 29(1), 225-226. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9655.13886. INVITED Journal issue
藤田高成 2022 「政府に応援されたシングルマザー――80～90年代ベトナムの「子を請う」女性たち」WEBアステイオン. INVITED Web article
Fujita, T. 2022. Review of Television in Post-Reform Vietnam: Nation, Media, Market, by Giang Nguyen-Thu. Southeast Asian Studies 11(2), 331-333. DOI: 10.20495/seas.11.2_331. PDF Journal issue
Fujita, T. 2022. Hanoi’s built materiality and the scales of anthropology: toward a theory of ‘architectural facts’. Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology 66(1), 108-132. DOI:10.3167/sa.2022.6601OF3. PEER-REVIEWED PDF Journal issue
Papers and talks
2023 ‘Studying khu tập thể as an anthropologist: from the micro to the macro’. Public lecture at WORKLOUNGE 03- VN / WORKSHOP 04, WORKLOUNGE 03- Vietnam. INVITED
2022 ‘Banalities of past and future: the memories and imagined fate of khu tập thể in Hanoi’. Paper presentation at Anthropology and Vietnamese Cities in the Context of Globalization, Trường Đại học Khoa học Xã Hội và Nhân Văn, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội.
2021 ‘Post-humanist urban environment: theories from Hanoi’s malleable apartments’. Paper presentation at Doing theory in Southeast Asia, Centre for Cultural Studies and MA in Intercultural Studies Program, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
2019 ‘Architectural fact of collective housing in Hanoi: dialogue with anthropology’. Paper presentation and panel discussion at Transfers: diffusions and mobilities in the build landscapes of Asia and beyond (Graduate student conference), the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong.
Discussant
2022 Discussant for ‘The Panic Button, Anytime-Anywhere Protection, and the Anonym as Principle of Public Individuation’ by William Stafford. Works-in-Progress series of the Department of Anthropology, the University of Toronto, Canada. INVITED
Educational background
2018-ongoing. PhD programme in socio-cultural anthropology, the University of Toronto. (Canada)
2021-2024. Visiting PhD student, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering – Đại học Xây dựng Hà Nội. (Vietnam)
2016-2017 (voluntary withdrawal). PhD programme in anthropology, Princeton University. (United States)
2012-2013. MA in social anthropology of development, SOAS, University of London. (United Kingdom)
2007-2012. BA in interdisciplinary social science (相関社会科学), the University of Tokyo. (Japan)
2010-2011. Student exchange, the Unviersity of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi. (Vietnam)
Teaching and other professional background
2019-2021 Teaching Assistant for the undergraduate courses below at the University of Toronto. (Canada)
– Social cultural anthropology and global issues (2025 Winter)
– Anthropological perspectves on development (2021 Fall)
– Core concepts in social and cultural anthropology (2021 Fall)
– Introduction to Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology (2020 Fall)
– Introduction to anthropology: society, culture, and language (2020 Fall)
– Globalization and the Changing World of Work (2020 Winter)
– Rethinking Development, or the Improvement of the World (2019 Fall)
– Introduction to socio-cultural and linguistic anthropology (2019 Fall)
2019-2020 Research Assistant to Dr. Jesook Song for research on Vietnam-South Korea relationships during and after the Vietnam War. (Canada)
2017-2018 株式会社 キズキ 契約社員. (Japan)
2014-2016 独立行政法人 国際協力機構 (JICA) 職員. (Japan/Turkey)
Major awards
2018-2024 Scholarships and grants provided by different bodies of the University of Toronto, including: The Department of Anthropology; Dr. David Chu Program in Asia Pacific Studies.
2020年度 公益財団法人 サントリー文化財団 (Suntory Foundation) 「若手研究者のためのチャレンジ研究助成 (Grant for Groundbreaking Young Researchers)」. Final report
2019年度 独立行政法人 日本学生支援機構 (JASSO)「海外留学支援制度（大学院学位取得型）」.
2012年度 公益財団法人 平和中島財団「日本人留学生奨学生」.
2012年 東京大学教養学部「一高記念賞」.
Communities
Member, アジア農村研究会.
Contact
Visit the University of Toronto website for my email address.