Aika Sato (she/her) is a PhD student in anthropology at Yale, chasing the ghosts of Japanese imperialism as they linger in the cracks of port cities across East and Southeast Asia. She traces how these histories—molded and sedimented by multi-imperial/colonial entanglements and postwar transformations—fold into the textures of everyday life, neither remembered nor forgotten, but felt, lived, inhabited, reimagined, moved through, and reconfigured. When not in the field, she plays the Erhu and piano, experiments with desserts, and hosts potlucks that spill into late-night conversations with friends. Above all, she serves her feline overlord, Katsu—her steadiest anchor in all things.
Research interests: (Post-)imperial afterlives, violence and loss, place-making, cross-generational memory transmission, urban space, embodiment, affect, gender and sexuality, and ethnicity.