Daniel Akihiro Iwama, PhD

Dr. Daniel Iwama is an Uchinānchu, with Red River Métis and Mennonite settler ancestry. He is most interested in planning, and how forces of militarism interrupt and are interrupted by Indigenous relations with land and sea in the Pacific. His research and teaching interests relate to planning history and theory, empire, social movements and jurisdiction, and extend to matters of diaspora and community development.

In 2023, Daniel received a PhD in Urban Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He also holds degrees in Philosophy and Indigenous Community Planning from the University of British Columbia. 

Daniel's dissertation, “‘War by other means’; Military base return and the local politics of realignment on Okinawa Island 1995-present” examined processes of land repossession in what is known today as Okinawa Prefecture. He was an international fieldwork fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and held doctoral fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the UCLA Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies

Daniel is currently a full-time lecturer in Simon Fraser University's Department of Indigenous Studies. Outside of academia, he works in the worlds of planning and social policy. Most recently Daniel completed a contract supporting the re-orientation of the City of Vancouver's approach to monuments + memorials in the public realm. 

Daniel was raised in Vancouver, on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm , Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ First Nations. He still lives in East Vancouver.