Scholarly Overview: My ongoing research engagements lie in two main areas: migrant rights and health equity. In a recent co-edited volume (with Whitney Duncan, University of Northern Colorado), Accompaniment with Im/migrant Communities: Engaged Ethnography (University of Arizona Press, 2024), I outline an approach to engaged ethnography with im/migrant communities using the framework of accompaniment. I am working on a book project examining social movements for migrant inclusion, tentatively titled: State of Welcome: Contested Histories of a 'Sanctuary' State. My first ethnographic monograph, Care Across Generations: Solidarity and Sacrifice in Transnational Families (Stanford University Press, 2017), argues that intergenerational caregiving in transnational families is central to the ways in which Nicaraguan families face political-economic and gendered constraints by fostering solidarity across borders and over generations. My scholarly work has been published in academic journals, including The Journal of Refugee Studies, Migration and Society, Medical Anthropology, and the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (many of these publications can be found on my website). I am actively involved in professional service that aligns with my values for equity and inclusion, including serving on the UO Dreamers Working Group Steering Committee and on the Steering Committee for the Anthropologists Action Network for Immigrants and Refugees. As a mentor, I seek to use the relationships I have with community and professional organizations to open opportunities for my students, many of whom go on to careers in non-profit organizations, immigration legal advocacy, and international health and development work. As a public-facing and engaged scholar, I align my work with many Oregon migrant-serving non-profit and advocacy organizations and I coordinate a local accompaniment program as part of the IMIRJ Statewide Accompaniment Network.
Areas of Interest: Transnational migration; Immigrant rights and justice; Social movements; Public health and health equity; Global mental health; medical & psychiatric anthropology; humanitarianism and solidarity; care and caregiving; Nicaragua, México, Latin America.
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