Statement of Research Interests
My ethnographic research has been shaped by three primary fieldwork contexts: the Appalachian region of the United States, the rural Midwest, and island Southeast Asia. These settings are vastly different, but they illuminate shared concerns—questions of migration, community, personhood, identity, and the negotiation of work, family, and self amid larger structural transitions.
Across these projects, I’ve remained committed to community-based ethnography grounded in the everyday. My training in human ecology cultivated an early appreciation for interdisciplinary inquiry and mixed-methods approaches, and that ethos continues to guide me as I engage complex social, economic, and environmental challenges across cultural contexts.
From Indonesia to Appalachia: Place, Power, and Belonging
My earliest fieldwork as a Fulbright Scholar in Indonesia focused on the government’s longstanding transmigration program—an effort to resettle mostly landless poor from overcrowded urban centers into rural frontier zones. These planned settlements were intended to foster a unified national identity, but I found that settlers actively reinterpreted and reshaped these spaces, struggling to build socially and ecologically viable communities on their own terms.
This research attuned me to the tensions between imposed visions of belonging and lived experiences of place-making—insights that have profoundly influenced my later work in the United States.
Lifestyle Migration and Moral Narratives of the Self
In Northwest Lower Michigan, I investigated “lifestyle migration” among middle-class families seeking to escape the volatility of postindustrial, metropolitan life. These individuals and families relocate to amenity-rich rural towns, hoping to regain control, reconnect with nature, and reimagine their lives.
I found that such migrations are not merely economic or aesthetic decisions—they are moral acts of self-reinvention. Migrants often describe themselves as refugees from the corporate world, seeking refuge in imagined communities where they can align livelihood with identity. This work has contributed to my theorizing of “the fifth migration” in the U.S.: a cultural response to the dislocations of flexible capitalism, rooted in narratives of travel, conversion, and authenticity.
Appalachia in Transition: Ethnography of Crisis and Possibility
For over a decade, I’ve conducted fieldwork in West Virginia and the greater Tri-State region, exploring how communities reckon with the legacies of deindustrialization and environmental risk. Positioned at the blurred edge of the so-called “Rust Belt,” West Virginia is marked by extractive industries, outmigration, and aging demographics—but also by emerging movements for resilience, innovation, and redefinition.
In this context, I’ve examined both grassroots community building and structural dependencies that expose residents to ongoing forms of toxic suffering. One result of this work is I’m Afraid of That Water, a collaborative ethnography of the 2014 Elk River chemical spill that weaves together oral histories, activist insights, and critical analysis to confront questions of health, infrastructure, and environmental justice.
Thematic Threads
Though my research spans continents and decades, several themes unify it:
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Migration as transformation – Whether state-driven or self-initiated, migration becomes a medium through which people negotiate identity, reframe values, and imagine new futures.
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Community and contested space – From Indonesian settlements to Appalachian river towns, I explore how people build and sustain communities within (and against) structural constraints.
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Narrative and personhood – Storytelling is not only data but method and theory. My participants’ accounts illuminate the tensions and possibilities of contemporary life.
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Work, family, and self – My research contributes to the anthropology of work by examining how labor and livelihood shape—and are shaped by—cultural models of family and personhood.
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Ethnography as ethical practice – Whether in the form of collaborative authorship or public engagement, I seek to conduct anthropology that is accountable, relational, and relevant.
Looking Ahead
The richness of ethnographic method lies in its ability to trace meaning in the overlooked rhythms of everyday life. I remain committed to this practice—not only as a scholar, but as an educator and university leader. In my administrative work, I carry these research values forward: a deep attention to context, a commitment to listening, and a belief in the transformative power of place and story.
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