Maxime Polleri

Junior Global Horizons Fellow, SCAS.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Biomedical Ethics Unit, McGill University.
Network Affiliate, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University


Maxime Polleri is an anthropologist of science and technology studying the governance of
disasters and public health crises. His research projects focus on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
disaster, the COVID-19 pandemic, and global epidemic alerting systems. He is currently a Post-
doctoral Researcher at McGill University in the Biomedical Ethics Unit within the Faculty of
Medicine. He is also a Network Affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
at Stanford University, where he was formerly a MacArthur Nuclear Security pre- and post-doc-
toral Fellow.

His publications include “Conflictual Collaboration: Citizen Science and the Governance of Radio-
active Contamination after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster” in American Ethnologist, “Post-political
Uncertainties: Governing Nuclear Controversies in Post-Fukushima Japan” in Social Studies of Sci-
ence
, and “Radioactive Performances: Teaching about Radiation after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster”
in Anthropological Quarterly.

At SCAS, Polleri will finish a book project entitled “Radioactive Governance: The Politics of Revitaliza-
tion in Post-Fukushima Japan.” Based on 14 months of fieldwork in Japan, the book argues that domi-
nant practices of governance around radioactive risks and recovery have coalesced toward a politics
of revitalization in Fukushima, so as to manage the vulnerabilities of an ecologically and economically
insecure Japan. The book examines the historical contingencies, sociocultural factors, economic rationale,
scientific discourse, and expert strategies that enable a politics of revitalization to thrive after a disaster.
By revealing major shifts in the regulation of life amid toxic exposure, the research highlights how the
management of contamination is evolving in an era when the impacts of pollution are making permanent
marks on the planet. Additionally, Polleri will advance multidisciplinary research on global governance
issues by focusing on two large-scale challenges: nuclear disasters and viral pandemics.


This information is accurate as of the academic year 2021-22.