Email: skk at unc.edu
Phone: N/A
Areas of Interest
smallholder agriculture, food systems, gender, development and aid, political ecology, sustainable livelihoods, alternative economies, disaster recovery, climate change, and Caribbean cultures.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy in Cultural Anthropology, April 2021 (in progress)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dissertation Topic: Sustainable Transitions in Agricultural Livelihoods: Global Change and Local Food Production in Dominica
Master of Arts in Cultural Anthropology, 2012
University of Oregon
Master’s Paper: The Problem of Women’s Work: Gender and the Agrarian Economy in the Commonwealth of Dominica
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude in Cultural Anthropology, 2005
Washington University in St. Louis
Honor’s Thesis: Imagining taste: culinary identity and the modernization of produits de terroir in Franc
Research and Activities
Since 2012, I have engaged in research on agrarian change with smallholder farmers and families in The Commonwealth of Dominica, a rural island nation in the Eastern Caribbean. My dissertation investigates how rural households and communities continue to cultivate sustainable livelihoods from farming despite deteriorating economic and environmental conditions. The project is designed as a comparative, mixed-methods study, which utilizes ethnographic, quantitative, geo-spatial (GIS), and archival data to investigate the multi-scaled dynamics of agricultural transitions.
Field research (conducted Jan 2018-Aug 2019) has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, PEO International, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Preliminary findings indicate important spatial, temporal, and gender differences in agricultural transitions and livelihood sustainability.
For additional information and to access my CV, please visit my website: http://www.samanthaking.info