April 7, 2022

Hafuness Raw & Revisited: Identity and Embodied Politics of Black and Japanese People Navigating Biracialism in the US and in Japan

Dr. Maïko Le Lay, Postdoctoral Associate, FHI & SLIPPAGE@Duke

Dr. Le Lay will present early-stage findings of her most recent research project focusing on the identities and embodied practices of Black Hafus (derived from the English word “half”) or put differently, people who identify as Black and Japanese. More particularly, this talk examines the ways Black Hafus navigate their complex biracial identities in different cultural spaces; build community and develop new possibilities on and offline; and embody polyculturalism. Polyculturalism refers to the idea that individuals’ relationships to cultures shift and are partial and plural. It celebrates the interconnectedness between different cultural groups as opposed to multiculturalism which tends to emphasize the separateness between various cultural identities (Kelley, R., Prashad, V.). Polyculturalism helps explain how mixed-race individuals navigate multiple identities and move in different cultural settings. The presentation will start with some background context around the loaded term Hafu using examples inspired by public figures such as Naomi Osaka. Le Lay will end by sharing emerging themes from recent interviews conducted with Hafus, parents of young Hafus, and Hafu influencers.

About the Speaker

Dr. Maïko Le Lay is an interdisciplinary scholar, practitioner, mentor from France and Japan whose research bridges the fields of performance, education, digital humanities, and African diasporic and Asian studies. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow affiliated with the Franklin Humanities Institute and SLIPPAGE@Duke. She received her PhD in Critical Dance Studies from the University of California, Riverside in 2020. Her doctoral research focused on hip hop education and she developed a curriculum called “embodied hip hop pedagogies,” which centers on performance, self-awareness, and hip hop (hi)stories. After her doctoral studies, Le Lay completed a postdoctoral scholarship in the Connected Learning Lab at the University of California, Irvine. Le Lay possesses a MA in Political Sciences from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL, Belgium) and a MA in Media and Cultural Studies from the Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle (France). At Duke, Le Lay is focusing on theree projects: The first examines the embodied practices and identities of Black Hafus (ethnically “half” Japanese people) through social media analyses. For the second project, Le Lay collaborates with Dr. Veronica Ahumada-Newhart, director of the Technology and Social Connectedness lab at the University of California, Davis, to analyze the embodied interactions and movements in space of health and social robots, and advocate for culturally sustaining and equitable robotic practices. Finally, Le Lay leads a working group and workshop series on Embodied Pedagogies On and Offline. You can find more information about her projects at http://maikolelay.com.