The photo shows the face of a person with brown skin and dark brown hair, which is clipped back. The person wears a black button-down shirt and smiles, framed by a leafy-green background.
Natalya Rodriguez
Area:
Cultural Anthropology, Gender and Labor in Contemporary Japan, Environment and Culture, Traditional Craft and Dress
Email:
natalyarodriguez@ucsb.edu
Curriculum Vitae:
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About:

Research Interests

My research focuses on the ways that people use heritage cloth and traditional dress as tools for community care, political advocacy, identity formation, and economic revitalization. I am particularly interested in the strategies and struggles of various stakeholders to capitalize on the values these textiles and attire materialize: culture, memory, identity, and difference.

My dissertation project uses the lens of Miyako Jofu, a handwoven ramie textile rooted in the Miyako Islands of Okinawa, Japan, to examine the social and environmental relations that craftspeople forge to sustain their heritage textile techniques.

Advisors

Academic History

  • M.A. East Asian Languages & Cultures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    • Thesis: “Kimono Threads: Unraveling Ontologies, Epistemologies, and Ethics”
    • Committee: Dr. Jeffrey T. Martin (Chair), Dr. Robert Tierney, Dr. Roderick Ike Wilson

Presentations

  • 2026: “Put the World to Rights: Visions of Change in Handmade Textile Production in the Miyako Islands, Okinawa, Japan.” Arts Revolt Forum! University of California, Santa Barbara, March 10
  • 2025: “Following the Threads of Miyako Textiles” [In Japanese]. Miyakojima Textile Exhibit Connect to the Future, Miyako Textile Business Cooperative, Miyakojima, Japan, November 1
  • 2025: “Seizing the Surplus: Creating Infrastructures of Care through Intangible Cultural Heritage Conservation in the Miyako Islands, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.” The Society for East Asian Anthropology and Seoul National University Department of Anthropology 2025 Conference, Seoul, Korea, July 14-16

Awards and Grants

  • 2025: Fulbright Grant Extension (Japan-United States Educational Exchange Promotion Foundation)
  • 2024-2025: Fulbright Japan Graduate Research Fellow
  • 2023: Graduate Student Association Summer Research Grant, UCSB
  • 2021-2026: Central Doctoral Scholars Fellowship, UCSB
  • 2020: EALC Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2019-2021: Graduate College Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2019-2020: CEAPS Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2019-2020: EALC Ralph Tyler Award for Best Japanese Language Student, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Teaching and Research Experience

  • Fall, Winter, Spring 2022-2023: TA, JAPAN 1, 2, 3 “First-Year Japanese,” UCSB Department of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies
  • Summer 2022: TA, EACS 4B “East Asian Traditions: Modern,” UCSB Department of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies
  • Spring 2022: TA, AS AM 8 “Intro to Asian American Gender & Sexuality,” UCSB Department of Asian American Studies
  • Summer & Fall 2020: Research Assistant, “Yellow Peril Redux: America’s Cultural Responses to the Economic Rise of Japan and China” (Digital Humanities Project), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (PI: Dr. SHAO Dan)
  • Fall 2020: TA, EALC 230 “Pop Cultures of East Asia,” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign