tags:: #author #Japan #Brazil #Portugal #ceramics --- An archeologist and historian by training, Liliana Morais has always been drawn to the stories behind objects and the tales of craftswomen and men. On the lookout for a shared humanity, she moved from her native Portugal to Brazil where she began studying the stories of women ceramists of Japanese origin. She wrote the book *Cerâmica em Cunha: 40 anos de forno noborigama no Brasil*, about a pottery community established by one of these women. Through her experience in Brazil, she built an intimate connection to Japanese crafts leading to a Ph.D. on the trajectories of craftspeople from West to East. Since then, she has lived and worked in Japan, researching and teaching sociology with a focus on crafts. Currently an associate professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, she has published extensively on the intersections between crafts, migration, and cultural identity. Her approach to life and work is one of curiosity, understanding, and respect. She considers cooking, camping in the Japanese countryside, and jumping in its pristine rivers some of the simple pleasures of life. A book that she recommends and that has helped shape her thinking on crafts is British anthropologist Tim Ingold’s *Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture*.