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Education
Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1995
M.A., Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1990
B.A., English, with Distinction, University of Virginia, 1983
Studied literature and political economy at Cambridge University, England, 1981-1982

Academic Positions
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 2006 – present
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 2001-2006
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 1995-2001
Member, Graduate Faculty, Women’s and Gender Studies Department, 1995-present
Member, Center for African Studies, 1995-present
Member, Graduate Certificate Program in Human Dimensions of Environmental Change, 1996-present

Administrative Positions
Director, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, 2007-2010
Graduate Program Director, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 2002-05
Acting Chair, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, (3 periods of 1-2 mths each, 2002-04)
Diocesan Coordinator of Development, Arusha Diocesan Development Office, Tanzania, 1986-87 Administered the Catholic Church's total development program in a 65,000 km2, 500,000 person area primarily occupied by Maasai.  28 member team used participatory problem posing methods to encourage dialogue, critical awareness, and self-defined development among villagers.  Traveled extensively in the field to meet with local people to discuss, design, implement and evaluate diverse community based projects.  Designed and presented training workshops for local development workers on participatory development approaches.  Networked with government and international agencies involved in the development process. 

Research & Teaching Interests
Cultural anthropology; anthropology and history; politics of development; culture and power; local-global dyamics; gender; feminist theory; social theory; ethnicity; political & legal anthropology; colonialism/imperialism; spirituality; missionization; transnationalism; social movements; indigenous rights; pastoralism; ethics and politics of ethnography;  research methodologies including feminist methodologies;  Africa.

Undergraduate Courses
Anthropology of Development; Anthropology of Africa; Women Writing Culture (cross-listed with Women's Studies); Anthropology of Gender (cross-listed with Women's Studies); Culture, Memory, and History; Gender and Power in Africa; Gender, Development, Environment: Politics, Perspectives, Politics; The Rights & Wrongs of Indigenous Peoples; Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.

Graduate Courses
Culture & Capitalism; Anthropology of Development; History & Anthropology; Research Design and Methods in Cultural Anthropology; Anthropology of Gender.

Recent Grants and Awards
Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (2006-7)

Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2005-6)

Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (2005-6)

Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship (2005-6)

Faculty Fellow, Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture seminar on "Citizenship" (2003-2004)

Faculty Fellow, Institute for Research on Women seminar on "Reconfiguring Gender and Class: Identities, Rights and Social Movements" (2003-2004)

Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2001-2002)

Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, Rutgers University (2001)

Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society (1999-2000)

Anne U. White Award, Association of American Geographers (1999-2000, with Richard Schroeder)

Richard Carley Hunt Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowship, Wenner-Gren (1996-1998)

Current Projects
I am a cultural anthropologist with long term research experience in Tanzania, primarily among Maasai pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. My first book, Once Intrepid Warriors , combines cultural, historical, and political economy approaches to explore the intersection and interconstruction of gender and ethnicity, and to demonstrate how they shaped and were shaped by the shifting meanings, uses and effects of "development" from the colonial period until the present. The book seeks to define, locate and analyze "development" historically, culturally and spatially, with particular attention to how "development" is mediated, reshaped, and even resisted at local levels as policies are translated into practices. I explore the gendered ways in which Maasai imagine and experience "development," and negotiate "marginality" as well as "modernity."

My second book, The Church of Women, explores female experiences and expressions of spirituality in the context of Catholic evangelization. I use historical and ethnographic evidence to examine how gender ideas and practices shaped the contours of the encounter between Catholic missionaries and Maasai men and women since 1950.  The book considers the consequences of taking spirituality seriously a a domain of gendered power.

I am currently completing my third book, tentatively called Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World, which explores the dynamics of civil society, transnational advocacy and the state in Africa through  an ethnohistorical study of the rise and fall of the engagement of pastoralist activists and organizations in Tanzania with the transnational indigenous rights movement.

I have also been working on a research project that investigates forms of collective action among African women. I am trying to study "from the ground up" how women of various ages, classes, and rural/urban locations have organized themselves into formal and informal associations, their agendas, institutional structures, and interaction with translocal and even transnational networks. At present, I am focusing on groups in Tanzania and Senegal, as well as several regional organizations.

Finally, I am writing a book of essays on the ethics and politics of ethnographic research that draws on my over 20 years of research experience.

In addition to these book length projects, I have edited numerous special issues and books on such topics as activisms, gendered modernities, the comparative study of the indigenous rights movement in Africa and the Americas, gender and pastoralism, gender and social change in Africa, and the legacies of late colonial development.

Other Selected Professional Experience and Activities

• Association for Feminist Anthropology: President (2009-2011); President-elect (2007-2009); Elected member, Board of Directors (2004-6), Program Co-Chair (2002-4)

• African Studies Association: Board of Directors, (1997-2000); Steering Committee, Women's Caucus (1998-2005

• Editorial Boards: Associate Editor, Signs (2005- );  WSQ (formerly Women’s Studies Quarterly) (2004-7 ); Women in Africa and the Diaspora Series, edited by Stanlie James and Aili Marie Tripp, University of Wisconsin Press (2002-);  Social Text (1996-2001)

• Women's Development Field Worker/Project Writer, ADDO, Tanzania (1985-86) -- Worked for full integration of women's participation in all phases of project design and implementation. Wrote project proposals, newsletters, and commentaries on social issues in Tanzania.

• Elected member, Board of Directors, Association for Feminist Anthropology

• Program Co-Chair, Association for Feminist Anthropology

• Elected member, Board of Directors, African Studies Association(1997-2000)

• Elected member, Steering Committee, Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association (1998- )

• Editorial Committee, Social Text (1996-2001)

• Executive Board, Women's Studies Program, Rutgers University (1996-98)

• Diocesan Coordinator of Development, Arusha Diocesan Development Office, Tanzania (1986-87) -- Administered the Catholic Church's total development program in a 65,000 km2, 500,000 person area primarily occupied by Maasai. 28-member team used participative problem-posing methods to encourage dialogue, critical awareness, and self-defined development among villagers. Traveled extensively in the field to meet with local people to discuss, design, implement and evaluate diverse community-based projects. Designed and presented training workshops for local development workers on participative development approaches. Networked with government and international agencies involved in the development process.

• Women's Development Field Worker/Project Writer, ADDO, Tanzania (1985-86) -- Worked for full integration of women's participation in all phases of project design and implementation. Wrote project proposals, newsletters, and commentaries on social issues in Tanzania.

Publications

Books

• Once Intrepid Warriors: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Cultural Politics of Maasai Development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press (2001), paperback edition 2004. Read an H-Net review by Katherine A. Luongo of Once Intrepid Warriors.

• The Church of Women: Gendered Encounters between Maasai and Missionaries . Bloomington: Indiana University Press (2005).

• Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Transnational Advocacy and the Cultural Politics of Representation, Recognition, Resources and Rights. Manuscript in progress.

Edited Books and Special Issues

• 2007. Activisms. Special issue of WSQ [formerly Women’s Studies Quarterly] 35 (3 & 4) (with Ethel Brooks)
  

• 2002. "Comparative Perspectives on the Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa and the Americas." Special section of American Anthropologist 104(4).

• 2001. "Wicked" Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa . Portsmouth: Heinemann Social History of Africa Series; Oxford:James Curry; CapeTown: David Phillip (with Sheryl McCurdy).

• 2001. Gendered Modernities: Ethnographic Perspectives New York: St. Martins Press.

• 2000. Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist . Oxford: James Currey, Athens: Ohio University Press.

• 2000. Lessons Learned? Development Experiences in the Late Colonial Period. Special issue of Journal of African History 41(1) (with Monica van Beusekom).

• 1996. Wayward Wives, Misfit Mothers and Disobedient Daughters: "Wicked" Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa. Special issue of Canadian Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Etudes Africaines 30(1) (with Sheryl McCurdy).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• 2008 “Northeast Tanzania’s Disappearing Rangelands: Historical Perspectives on Recent Regional Land Use/Cover Change.” Special issue of International Journal of African Historical Studies on Regional Interaction and Land Use in Northern Tanzania, 1850-2000: 41(3): 523-556 (with Lowe Börjeson and Pius Z. Yanda).

• 2008 “Cosmopolitics, Neoliberalism, and the State: The Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa.” In Pnina Werbner, ed. Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism: Rooted, Feminist and Vernacular Perspectives. Berg.
  

• 2007 “Introduction: Activisms.” Special issue of WSQ on Activisms 35 (3&4): 14-25 (with Ethel Brooks)
  

• 2003. "Women's Rights as Human Rights: Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF)." Africa Today, 49(2):1-26.

• 2002. "Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on the Indigenous Rights Movements in Africa and the Americas." American Anthropologist 104(4):1037-1049.

• 2002. "Precarious Alliances: The Cultural Politics and Structural Predicaments of the Indigenous Rights Movement in Tanzania." American Anthropologist 104(4):1086-1097.

• 2002. "Dilemmas of Counter-mapping Community Resources in Tanzania." Development and Change 33(1): 79-100 (with Richard Schroeder).

• 2001. "Wicked Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa." In Dorothy L. Hodgson and Sheryl McCurdy, eds. "Wicked" Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa. Portsmouth: Heinemann Social History of Africa Series.

• 2001. "On Modernity, Gender and Ethnography." In Dorothy L. Hodgson, ed. 2001. Gendered Modernity/Modernities: Ethnographic Perspectives New York: St. Martins Press.

• 2000. "Introduction: Gender and Pastoralism in Africa." In Dorothy L. Hodgson, ed. Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey, Athens: Ohio University Press.

• 2000. "Engendered Encounters: Men of the Church and the Church of Women in Maasailand, Tanzania, 1950-1993." Comparative Studies in Society and History 41(1):758-783.

• 2000. "Taking Stock: Ethnohistorical Perspectives on State Control, Ethnic Identity, and Pastoralist Development in Tanganyika, 1940-1961. Journal of African History 41(1):55-78.

• 1999. "Once Intrepid Warriors: Modernity and the Production of Maasai Masculinities." Ethnology 38(2):121-150.

• 1999. "Critical Interventions: Dilemmas of Accountability in Contemporary Ethnographic Research." Special issue of Identities entitled Unintended Consequences: On the Practice of Transnational Cultural Critique 6(2/3):201-224.

• 1999. "Images and Interventions: The Problems of Pastoralist Development." In David M. Anderson and Vigdis Broch-Due, eds., "The Poor are not us": Poverty and Pastoralism in East Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; London: James Currey, pps.221-239.

• 1999. "Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History: Changing Gender Relations Among Maasai in Tanganyika, 1890-1940." Journal of African History 40(1):41-65.

• 1999. "Women as Children: Culture, Political Economy and Gender Inequality among Kisongo Maasai." Special issue of Nomadic Peoples (n.s.) entitled East African Pastoralists at the Crossroads 3(2)115-130.

• 1997. "Embodying the Contradictions of Modernity: Gender and Spirit Possession among Maasai in Tanzania." In Maria Grosz-Ngate and Omari Kokole, eds., Gendered Encounters: Challenging Cultural Boundaries and Social Hierarchies in Africa. New York & London: Routledge, pps. 111-129.

• 1996. "'My Daughter...Belongs to the Government Now': Marriage, Maasai and the Tanzanian State." Canadian Journal of African Studies /Revue Canadienne des Etudes Africaines 30(1): 106-123.

• 1996. "Wayward Wives, Misfit Mothers, and Disobedient Daughters: 'Wicked' Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa." Canadian Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Etudes Africaines 30(1): 1-9 (with Sheryl McCurdy).