In this current historical moment, with the increase in globalized inequity and with the intensification of decolonial efforts, I argue for “pluriversal” orientations towards development discourses wherein people are “de-linked” from inherently damaging comparisons (Quijano 2007; Mignolo 2011). To these ends, I interrogate the intersections of discourse, social structure, and...
How do you map a rebellion, especially when its participants do not want to be seen? Between British colonization in the 18th century and emancipation in 1834, Dominica presented a number of slave and Maroon rebellions. This mapping project considered the First Maroon War (1785-86), the New Year’s Day Revolt...
My research is a historical ethnography of depictions of the ethnic and cultural other in 19th century England. I was motivated to do this research by curiosity about how cultural and racial otherness and national belonging was constructed historically. Although my work does not directly relate to modern conceptions of...
With concerns about how to feed an exponentially growing, increasingly obese population, humanity’s relationship with food is a pressing concern. Evaluating the evolutionary changes in the composition of gut microbiota (GM), defined as the microorganisms that live in the digestive tract, may offer insight into how human bodies have adapted...
In the era of international volunteerism, mounting evidence suggests that the presence of unskilled and culturally unaware volunteers in the Global South fosters “voluntourism”, and endangers the very populations and institutions that volunteers want to help. Northwestern does not enforce a pre-trip curriculum for student organizations that coordinate private service...
Migrant illegality gives way to irregular livelihoods in Spain and around the world. Studies on migrant illegality have generally focused on its political, legal and economic production and the social impact of a states specific biopolitics. While invaluably important, there remains the need to better understand the modes of life...
The dissertation illuminates the centrality of communication to the way environmental policies and practices arise and unfold, and it shows how the living materiality of ecological phenomena are entangled with the social dynamics of communication. The work innovatively bridges insights from the field of political ecology with theory and method...
Raising California Together, an ethnography of licensed family childcare homes, contributes significant theoretical and empirical knowledge to our understanding of workfare, immigration and education institutions that shape the lives of the youngest subject-citizens and of those who care for them. I draw from more than three years of participant observation...
This dissertation explores how the environment shapes energy expenditure and cardio-metabolic disease risk by investigating multiple timescales of adaptation to cold stress among the Yakut, an indigenous circumpolar population. This study pursues three main objectives. First, the adaptive and health significance of brown adipose tissue (BAT) is explored by examining...
This dissertation examines how preparing settlements for war (i.e. fortification) relates to the maintenance of power relations. Violence has psychological and physical effects that can lead to asymmetries of power and extreme forms of social inequality (Brumfiel 1998; Carneiro 1970; Earle 1997; Fanon 1968; Farmer 2005; Flannery and Marcus 2012;...