As a social scientist, I use the tools and theories of anthropology to investigate social inequalities and inform ongoing attempts to address them. My research agenda is directly focused on understanding the reproduction of social inequalities within institutions such as the state and international development organizations.

​My research moving forward will continue to investigate the global intersectionalities of race, nation, education, and profession in southern Africa, yielding insights into patterns of inequality and the diversity of cultural responses to them.

Development Inequalities

Angola

My research in southern Africa has been particularly focused on how professional attempts to reduce poverty and increase political autonomy, whether through international development efforts or through national-level policies and practices, can inadvertently replicate inequalities rather than redress them. 

My first large project was based in Angola, in Luanda, Huambo, and Bié Provinces, where I examined how Angolan and international development professionals conducted their work and interacted with one another. This project informs a book, Implementing Inequality, and several journal articles.

​More here.

The Planner's Craft

Zambia

A second large project is ongoing in Zambia, in Western Province. In this project I am working with city planners and transportation officials to study how they are transforming Zambia "from a landlocked country to a land-linked country," as they have been tasked to do by several new policy mandates.

Collaborating with the Zambian Institute of Planners and the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research, a year-long Fulbright Grant in 2019 supported ethnographic fieldwork with planners and engineers working to improve roadways in Western Province. In March 2020, I was also awarded a Franklin Grant from the American Philosophical Society to fund research in Zambia’s National Archives, which will begin once international travel is safe.

​More here.