About

I am currently an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. I earned my PhD from the same department in 2023.

My research uses ethnographic data to advance our theoretical understanding of the relationship between racialization and settler colonialism. I am particularly interested in the ways migrants of colour use anti-Indigenous narratives to claim belonging in the settler state, and conversely, in the conditions under which migrants enact solidarity with Indigenous people on the basis of shared experiences of racialization and colonization. Taking up the challenge of closing the immigration-Indigenous “parallax gap” (Bauder 2011), I approach migration and immigrant integration as foundational aspects of settler colonialism and Indigenous dispossession. Some of my publications can be found here.

My teaching spans the entire undergraduate experience, from introduction to sociology to fourth-year seminars. At all levels, I centre three interconnected principles: active learning, equity and inclusion, and engaged citizenship. I actively engage students in their own learning through measures like weekly participation and using educational technology in the classroom; I build equity and inclusion through Universal Design for Learning principles and acknowledging the racialized, gendered, and classed positions of students; and I encourage students to be engaged citizens by equipping them with the tools needed to critically assess the social world they live in.

I’m proud to be raised in Saskatoon, on Treaty Six Territory, and now reside in Toronto.

Feel free to get in touch with me at yukiko (dot) tanaka (at) utoronto.ca.