Suma Ikeuchi

Research Overview

Dr. Ikeuchi is the author of Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora (Stanford University Press 2019), which explores the interplay of ethnic, national, and religious identities among the Nikkeis (i.e. Japanese Brazilians) who return-migrated to their ancestral homeland, Japan. The monograph won two book awards in 2020, the Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology and the Clifford Geertz Prize from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion. Her current project, funded by the National Science Foundation, examines the politics of eldercare in aging Japan by comparing the Filipino migrant caregivers and robotic care technologies in the country.