Lecturer, Arts Management

Dr Roslynn Ang

  • PhD in East Asian Studies, New York University, US

  • MA Human Sciences, Sociology, Hokkaido University, Japan

  • BA (Upper Second Honours), Japanese Studies and Sociology/Anthropology, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Dr Roslynn Ang is an educator and scholar in the intersections of cultural anthropology, East Asian studies, settler colonial studies, media and performance, and critical heritage studies.

She is in a long-term engagement with the Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai (札幌ウポポ保存会), an intangible cultural heritage performance group that focuses on revitalising indigenous Ainu song and dance in Japan. Her research interests include performance and media, decolonising methodology, indigeneity, representations of race and nation, and Japan’s global colonial history.

As a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for East Asian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, she developed a podcast series and conducted an online K-12 educator workshop. She previously taught core curriculum courses to a diverse student body,  including non-native English speakers, as a Global Perspectives on Society Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University Shanghai.

Dr Ang is currently a co-principal investigator of an international research group Cross-border Action Heritage for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-islands Diplomacies in the Asian Pacific Rim, funded by a three-year grant from the Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU).

Her works have been published in the International Journal of Cultural Policy, International Journal of Heritage Studies, and The Museum in Asia (Routledge). She has lived and worked in Singapore, China, Japan and the US. In her free time, she fosters Singapore Specials and volunteers with a local animal shelter SOSD.

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Journal publications (select)

  • Ang, R. ‘Refusing Settler Sovereignty: Salmon Fishing for Ainu Rituals’. International Journal of Heritage Studies, pp. 1–16 (2026) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2025.2611221
  • Huang, S. M., Ang, R., Ako, T., Kao, Y. T., & Tseng, C. C. ‘Heritage at transnational work: a belated acceptance of “Love and Peace” upon the 1871 shipwreck and 1874 wars across islands between Taiwan and Okinawa’. International Journal of Heritage Studies, pp 1–21 (2025) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2025.2591621
  • Ang, R. ‘Unequally Interdependent: Ainu Social Resilience within Japan Settler-Nation Multicultural Discourse’. The International Journal of Cultural Policy (2025)
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2025.2514051
  • Ang, R. ‘Indigenous Survival Politics in the Promotion of a National Discourse’. Anthropology News 60(5) pp. e183–e188 (2019) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/AN.1260

Book chapters (select)

  • Ang, R. “Swapping Time between Contemporary Ainu and Kaitaku Settler Colonial History” In Cai.Y. (Eds.) The Museum in Asia Routledge (2025)
  • Ang, R. “Whose heritage?: Contesting representations of the Indigenous Ainu” In Huang, Shumei and Lee, Hyun Kyung. (Eds.) Frontiers of Memory in the Asia-Pacific: Difficult Heritage and the Transnational Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism, Hong Kong University Press (2022)
  • Ang, R. ‘無としてのマイノリティ　ー　不可視の内なる他者’」 . 『人類学者は異文化をどう体験したか：１６のフィルドから』桑山敬己. ミネルヴァ書房. “The Invisible but Intimate Other” in Kuwayama, T. (Eds.) How do Anthropologists Encounter Foreign Cultures: From Sixteen Fields, Minerva Shobo (2021)

Reports, commentaries, book reviews/interviews (select)

  • Cai, Y., Thornton, S., Ang, R., Chua, L., Page, S., and Upton, C.‘The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Environmental and Heritage Conservation’ (2022) DOI: https://doi.org/10.25392/leicester.data.19430453.v1
  • Ang, R. ‘Book review of Y. Cai. Staging Indigenous Heritage: Instrumentalisation, Brokerage, and Representation in Malaysia’ in International Journal of Asian Studies, London: Routledge, (2021) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591421000450
  • Ang, R. ‘Indigenous Art in the context of Settler Colonialism’ (定居殖民主义背景下的原住民艺术), interview in 信睿周报The Thinker, Volume 48, Citic Press Group (2021)
  • Ang, R. ‘Indigeneity that Unsettles Japan’s Settler Society: From the Perspective of the Everyday’ (日本の入植型植民社会を揺らす先住民族：日常と非日常の視点から)、Identity and Cultural Icons in a Multicultural World : Ethnicity, language, nation, pp.149–150, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Media and Communication (2020) https://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/handle/2115/77221
  • Ang, R. ‘Association of Critical Heritage Studies: Heritage Across Borders’ Fabrications 29(1), pp.112–11 (2019) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2019.1534311

  • Volunteer mentor, U.S. Embassy Singapore-ITE Alumni Mentoring Programme (USEAMP) (2025)
  • Producer, NCTA Critical Studies Short Course for a K12 educator workshop: ‘Indigenous Cultures in Settler Colonial East Asia’ (2024)
  • Producer, researcher, and interviewer, Podcast: Indigenous Asia (2024)
  • Translator: Ainu Association of Hokkaido, ‘Anticipating the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics & Paralympics’ (2021)
  • Organiser: Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai in NYU Shanghai. Intangible cultural heritage workshop and media collaboration with interactive media arts (IMA) students. https://ainusapporoupopoho.wixsite.com/sapporoupopohozonkai (2019)
  • Organiser and moderator: Screening of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Asako I & II and discussion with director (NYU Shanghai) (2018)
  • Member: ‘Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai’ (Sapporo Upopo Preservation Society), official Ainu traditional performance group, National and UNESCO Intangible Heritage (2014–present)

Invited talks

  • ‘Complicating Resistance and Compliance: Strategies of Indigenous Ainu Survival in Everyday Spaces’, Anthropology, Purdue University, US (2024)
  • ‘Intersecting research and pedagogy: Structures of control and empowerment’, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore (2023)
  • Contextualizing Ainu Art in Japanese Settler Colonialism’, Newcomb Art Department, Tulane University, US (2021)
  • ‘Hearing the Silenced: Ainu Cultural Performance in/against Japanese Settler Normativity’, Indigenous East Asia Symposium Series, East Asian Studies Center, Indiana University, US (2021)
  • ‘Why are we talking about race if it’s not real’, Committee on Critical Inquiry, New York University Shanghai, China (2020)
  • ‘日本の入植型植民社会を揺らす先住民族：日常と非日常の視点から (Indigeneity that Unsettles Japan’s Settler Society: From the Perspective of the Everyday)’, School of Education, Hokkaido University, Japan (2019)
  • ‘Ghosts of the Emperor Past and Ainu Future: Traditional Ainu Performances of Revival, Survival and Transformation.’ Japanese Studies Department, National University of Singapore Seminar Series, Singapore (2018).
  • ‘Desirable Differences: Making the Familiar Strange and Uncomfortable’, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden (2016)

Dr Ang’s research explores different aspects of representations across various media, specifically on how they are produced, managed, negotiated, and challenged. Her work originated in the representations of Okinawans in mainstream Japanese television series, newspaper reportage, and indie manga.

Her following project centres on the global representations of the Ainu in museums, which range from the production process of artifact collection and management to curation, reception, and reparations. She is currently involved in various cultural revitalisation and memorialisation projects, with a focus on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Her upcoming project explores Indigenous rights to salmon fishing, environmental sustainability, heritage justice, and the Ainu people’s salmon ritual.

Her academic expertise includes media anthropology, ethnomusicology, heritage studies, settler colonial studies and East Asian studies.

  • ‘Cross-border Action Heritage for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-islands Diplomacies in the Asian Pacific Rim.’, The Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) (Co-Principal Investigator) (2025–2027)
  • ‘Cross-border Action Heritage for Trans-Indigenous and Inter-islands Diplomacies in the Asian Pacific Rim.’, The Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU), (Co-Principal Investigator) (2024)
  • Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, Indiana University, Bloomington (2023–2024)
  • NYU MacCracken Doctoral Fellowship (2010–2016)
  • Monbukagakusho (MEXT- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology– Japan) MA Programme Scholarship (2006–2009)
  • Okinawa Prefecture Language Scholarship, The University of the Ryukyus (2002–2003)