Research
Current and previous projects.
This project, in partnership with Friends of George's, examines the impacts of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation on the wellbeing of queer and trans people in Memphis, with special emphasis on the ways LGBTQ+ people in Memphis develop resilience, build community, and engage in care and mutual aid in the face of ongoing necropolitical attacks.
This project is an applied ethnographic field school in collaboration with my colleague Dr. Jill Fleuriet at Salem College (formerly The University of Texas at San Antonio). Each summer, the field school partners with local community arts organizations to conduct applied research useful to the organizations while also teaching students engaged/applied community-based research methods. In addition to conducting applied work for our community partners, we collect academic data on the impacts of arts programming on the health and wellbeing of community members, with a particular focus on how community arts can function as sources of care. Our community partners so far include:
My colleague Dr. Ted Maclin and I formed the University of Memphis Critical AI Studies Cluster and have begun leading conversations on campus that intend to push back on the uncritical implementation and acceptance of AI/LLMs on campus. We are advising student projects and developing our own applied ethnographic project to document and investigate the ongoing ethical, political, and environmental problems related to AI in Memphis, especially related to the SpaceXAI factories in South Memphis. Additionally, we are interested in taking a critical approach to studying and understanding AI/LLMs in ways that cut through the hype and open up conversations about the profound (and, we would argue, very harmful) impacts AI/LLMs are having on society. Any UofM community members who are interested in joining the Critical AI Studies Cluster can email me or Ted for more information.
In collaboration with my colleague Dr. Lindsey Feldman (University of Arizona, formerly University of Memphis), this engaged/applied project was conducted with a local non-profit agency focused on reducing HIV stigma in Memphis. We conducted program evaluations and needs assessments for two 8-week sexual health courses taught by the organization at the Day Reporting Center, a state-funded re-entry program for people with drug charges.
PhD dissertation project based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork at ADC-MidWest, a clinic specializing in HPV-related anal disease (dysplasia, neoplasia, cancer) in Chicago. This project was a study of care practices among clinicians and patients at an anal cancer prevention clinic. Anal cancer, caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), disproportionately impacts queer and trans people, especially those living with HIV. In my dissertation, I developed a queer theory of care that troubles heteronormative logics underlying both medical care and anthropological scholarship on care. My dissertation describes the diverse forms of embodiment produced by anxieties of embarrassment and stigma that emerge around caring for/about the anus. The project puts anthropological insights on dirt/pollution, taboo, and care into conversation with queer and trans theory, especially around issues of embodiment, heteronormativity, and humor.
My Master's project examined the experiences of queer medical students in South Texas as they underwent medical training and professionalization processes, which attempt to create a separation between the "professional" provider identity and the "personal" identity outside the clinic. I found that queer identity still worked its way into queer medical students' notions of their medical practice and care for patients, but that the medical students nonetheless stated that their identities were irrelevant to their delivery of care. This demonstrated a paradoxical relationship between minoritized identities and the professionalization process that attempts to erase personal identity from professional medical contexts in the name of "professionalism".
