Jennifer Erickson
Assoc Professor of Anthropology, Asst Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Asst Director, Center for Middletown Studies
Jennifer Erickson is a feminist anthropologist whose research interests include refugee resettlement, welfare, taxes, gender, race, ethnicity, and urban anthropology in the Midwest United States, South Sudan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her first book, Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Small Cities (2020) compares and contrasts refugee resettlement and welfare agencies and Bosnian and Southern Sudanese refugees in Fargo, North Dakota. The book outlines the ways in which refugee resettlement has reconfigured what constitutes diversity in Fargo, how various actors and institutions have responded to refugees, and how New Americans serve as change agents in the city. She has also published articles in Signs, Focaal, Human Organization, and Romani Studies.
Erickson teaches classes and advises undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of gender, race and ethnicity, political economy, global migration, urban life, and ethnographic methods. Her immersive learning classes include an ethnographic methods course that studied the history, demographics, and culture of a Muncie neighborhood and a three-week ethnographic field school to Bosnia-Herzegovina where students researched three different cities with a focus on ethnicity, religion, and political economy. In Fall 2021, she is teaching an ethnographic methods course on Muncie Parks and Recreation through the lens of urban anthropology.
Erickson’s current research includes a comparative, urban ethnography of Muncie, Indiana, and Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Both cities are reeling from the effects of (post)industrialism and austerity measures that threaten livelihoods and equity among residents living in these mid-sized cities.
Visit Jennifer's website
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Education
MA, Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Oregon
BA, English Literature and Psychology, Luther College
Research Interests
- Refugee Resettlement
- Race and ethnicity
- Gender and feminism
- Citizenship
- Diversity
- Urban Anthropology
Publications
- Forthcoming. “Diversity in the Dakotas: Lessons in Intercultural Policies.” Vulnerable Communities: Research, Policy and Practice, edited by James J. Connolly, Dagney G. Faulk, and Emily J. Wornell. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- 2020. Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Small Cities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- 2017. Morgen, Sandra and Jennifer Erickson. “Incipient ‘Commoning’ In Defense of the Public?: Competing Varieties of Fiscal Citizenship In Tax- and Spending-related Direct Democracy.” Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 79: 54-66.
- 2017. “Intersectionality Theory and Bosnian Roma: Understanding Violence and Displacement.”Romani Studies 27(1): 1-28.
- 2012. “Volunteering with Refugees: Neoliberalism, Hegemony, and (Senior) Citizenship.”Human Organization 71(2): 167-175.
- 2011. Jennifer Erickson and Caroline Faria. “We want empowerment for our women”: Transnational Feminism, Neoliberal Citizenship and the Gendering of Women’s Political Subjectivity in South Sudan.” Signs 36(3): 627-652.
Courses
- Anthropology of Everyday Life
- Social Theory in Anthropology
- Race and Ethnicity
- Anthropology of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
- Urban Anthropology
- Ethnographic Methods and Ethnographic Field Schools
- Anthropology of the United States
- International Women's Issues (WGS)
Awards and Honors
- Fulbright Award to Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Provost's Immersive Learning Grant
- Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship, University of Oregon
- Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics Dissertation Fellowship, University of Oregon
- National Science Foundation, Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant
Service and Memberships
- Graduate Education Committee Executive Board member
- American Association of University Professors, Steering Committee Member
- American Association of University Women, member
- Boren Scholarship Committee
- Society for the Anthropology of North America, Board Member
- American Anthropological Association, member
- Society for Applied Anthropology, member
- Association for Feminist Anthropology, member