Concentration: Individualized
Biography
Ami Kitada is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests lie in the interdisciplinary field of Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS) related to sexual and reproductive health and rights in Japan. She received her M.A. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Kansas, where she also completed a graduate certificate in the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her M.A. thesis, titled ‘Visible Data, Invisible Menstruation: The Paradox of Empowerment and Control through Femtech in the Japanese Workplace,’ examined how the technologies construct hegemonic discourses about menstruation and the ways menstruators engage in self-disciplinary conduct and conform to a patriarchal, able-bodied, male-centered labor system. As an activist researcher, Ami works with a Japanese advocacy group focused on menstrual dignity, and is passionate about interrogating structural injustices that contribute to various forms of oppression.