Research Theme :
Religion and Economy in Insular Southeast Asia

Waka Aoyama is a Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo, Japan. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Tokyo, and is the author of An Ethnography of Poverty: Socioeconomic Life of Five Sama Families in Davao City, Philippines. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press (2006, written in Japanese). The book earned academic awards including the 8th apan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize. Her research interest is in understanding the interactions of institutions and agency in the adaptive process of cultural minorities to the globalized market society. She has been making multiple visits to Sama-Bajau communities in Davao (Mindanao, Philippines) since 1997 as well as to an Ainu community in Biratori (Hokkaido, Japan) since 2009.