Christopher Chapman

Thesis: Caring for Children of the State: Subjectivity, Mental Health, and Ethics in Japan’s Child Welfare System (working title)

Christopher Chapman is a DPhil Student in Anthropology at the University of Oxford. His research interests are in health, inequality, and family dynamics. His doctoral research examines the intersection between mental health and the child welfare system in Japan. Focusing on the social, economic, and political dimensions of caregiving, his work aims to contextualize health knowledge and practice. A central objective of this research is to inform welfare policy and mental health services of social determinants of inequality, as well as the experiences of children and their caregivers.

Christopher completed his master’s training in medical anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where he explored identity and health through ethnographic research with Japanese immigrants in Honolulu. Christopher’s undergraduate education was in Sociology and Anthropology at Rocky Mountain College.

Originally from the United States, Christopher’s upbringing in a family of medical professionals helped expose him to the ways in which medical care is delivered and negotiated. Before embarking on a career in social research, he worked in a variety of positions in the United States and Japan, ranging from probation and parole to wholesale account management.

Concurrent to his studies, Christopher teaches medical anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and volunteers for International Foster Care Alliance (IFCA), a nonprofit organization working to improve the lives of foster youth.

Department: Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology

College: St. Antony’s College

Supervisors: Roger Goodman and Alison Shaw