Area of Interest:

Globalization and Place; Race, Ethnicity and History; Social Movements; Critical Development Studies; Gender; Public Anthropology; the Caribbean; the U.S. Southwest

Education:

Ph.D., University of Florida

Research & Activities:

Present Research: I am interested in the intersection of global processes, configurations of place and rural place identities; shifting notions of race; and social movements.  I have worked in the Eastern Caribbean exploring how farmers used collective action and individual narratives about place and nation to engage critically with neoliberal policies affecting their livelihoods.  Currently, I am examining the significance of race, place and history within rural and historic African American towns in the U.S. southwest.  In this project, I am interested in the diverse and shifting ways that race, memory and history are mobilized to define the towns in the 21st century.

I am also working on a project about the work of "Chicago School" sociologist, Mozell C. Hill, examining Hill's arguments regarding black "utopian" movements, "white culture," and the contexts shaping U.S. race relations. 

Courses Taught:
Ethnography and Black Communities, Anthropology of the Caribbean, Afro-Caribbeans and the U.S.,  Writing and Publishing in Anthropology, Public Anthropology, Contemporary African American Issues, Globalization and Resistance, Black Feminist Theory

Selected Publications:

2009  “Situating Whites and Whiteness in the Work of Mozell C. Hill.” Transforming Anthropology.  17(1):34-38.

2008  “Critical Explorations of Gender and the Caribbean: Taking it into the Twenty-first Century,” (co-authored with Tanya L. Shields) Identities:  Global Studies in Power and Culture. 15(6): 687-702.

2008  "Caribbean Studies, Anthropology, and U.S. Academic Realignments.” (co-authored with Deborah Thomas)  Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society  10(2): 123-137.

2007  Caribbeanist Anthropologies at the Crossroads:  Revisiting Themes, Revising Concepts.  Special journal issue co-edited wth Deborah Thomas.  Identities: Global Studies in Power and Culture.  vol .14. no. 1/2.

2007  "Situating Sugar Strikes: Contestations of Race and Politics in Decolonizing St. Lucia."  Identities: Global Studies in Power and Culture 14 (1/2):  39-62.

2006  Free Trade and Freedom:  Neoliberalism, Place, and Nation in the Caribbean.  University of Michigan Press.

2005  "Globalisation, the Nation, and Labour Struggles in St. Lucia's Banana Industry."  In: Revisiting Caribbean Labour Studies:  Essays in Honour of O. Nigel Bolland.  Constance Sutton, editor, pp. 98-117.  Ian Randle Publishers.

2003 "Rethinking Global and Area Studies: Insights from the Caribbean." American Anthropologist (105)3:  553-565.  (co-authored with Deborah Thomas)

2003 "Discourses and Counter Discourses on Globalization and the St. Lucian Banana Industry." In: Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History. Steve Striffler and Mark Moberg, editors, pp.306-357.  Duke University Press.

2001 "Negotiating Identity and Black Feminist Politics in Caribbean Research." In: Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Praxis, Poetics, and Politics. Irma McClaurin, editor, pp. 126-149. Rutgers University Press.