Underlying Isabel Hershey’s educational pursuits has been her dedication for human rights and intersectional social justice. Hershey earned dual degrees in Anthropology and the Arts and Humanities, as well as three minors in Peace and Justice Studies, Human Behavior and Social Services, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Drawing on her multifaceted interests, Hershey worked with Dr. Elizabeth Drexler on two related research projects both supported by College of Social Science Provost’s Undergraduate Research Initiative (PURI) awards. One study focused on how art moves audiences affectively in terms of human rights and justice projects, and the other examined representations of structural violence through a photovoice project.

The latter study was conducted this past year during the pandemic, which propelled an increasing awareness of the structural violence that persists nationally and internationally. As artists have continued to expose systemic inequity through their creative work, Hershey’s and Dr. Drexler’s research project explored the relationship between artistic activism and structural violence during this global pandemic. Using the photovoice method, Hershey engaged with community members who took photos in response to prompts about structural violence. She then analyzed certain themes and their connections to the photographs. Hershey presented her findings at the University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (URAF) and created an exhibit of these images representing community voices.

This coming school year, Hershey will be working in Flint, MI with the Crim Fitness Center as a FoodCorps Service Member. While teaching students about nutrition, she will also be studying for the LSAT and applying to law schools with human rights/civil rights programs. With a J.D., she hopes to be an advocate for her community and promote access to education for all.

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Dr. Sabrina Perlman’s dissertation research took place over fourteen months in Kumasi, Ghana, where she was a participant observer, carried out interviews, and collected biomarker data from medical records in an urban public hospital’s diabetes clinic. Under the mentorship of Drs. Heather Howard and Masako Fujita, she produced a dissertation titled “Diabetes, Gender, and Poverty in Ghana”. Her dissertation tells the story of diabetes in Ghana through the voices of the clinic’s patients and healthcare providers contending with the challenges of self-management in a context of gender inequality and intersectionality of multiple disadvantages.

Dr. Perlman’s work significantly contributes to understanding the escalation of non-communicable disease in West Africa and globally through the anthropological lens of chronicity theory, which views systems of disadvantage as chronic conditions that exacerbate negative health outcomes. Her research provides perspective on the impacts of diabetes on patients’ ability to fulfill gendered expectations in the areas of sexuality and physical work, revealing how these result in distress and worsened economic states. Her focus on women’s experiences broadens understanding of female sexual dysfunction resulting from diabetic illness, and fills a gap in the literature which is almost exclusively focused on male complications and impacts on masculinities. Dr. Perlman’s research has important policy implications for chronic illness management in resource-poor environments.

Since graduating in 2020, Dr. Perlman has taken a position as Research Project Manager at Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. In this role, she works with students and physician faculty members to develop research projects, encouraging their thinking about gender, race, class, disability, and other human conditions that intersect with health outcomes.

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Dr. Jeffrey Painter has played a key role in the Morton Village Project, led by his former advisor Dr. Jodie O’Gorman, throughout his graduate career. His dissertation, “Cooking and Coalescence: Exploring the Construction of Community and Cuisine at Morton Village,” investigates foodways practices at this site located in the central Illinois River valley. Dr. Painter developed his research to explore the role cooking plays in local and immigrant communities in post-migration contexts of the ancient past. Using a broad foodways perspective, he examined residue patterns on pottery to identify cooking techniques. His analyses of the pottery’s physical and symbolic attributes and spatial considerations significantly contribute to understanding the role of cooking in inter-cultural negotiations, as well as the larger process of coalescence.

Dr. Painter’s case study at the Morton Village archaeological site supports the interpretation that, while actively using material culture and foodways to build solidarity and create shared traditions, neither group adopted the cooking traditions of the other wholesale. Additionally, he discusses how foodways may have also served as one avenue through which migrants could partake in local social and political dynamics of the region. His dissertation demonstrates the benefits of an approach to coalescence focusing on foodways and other everyday behaviors in addition to more large-scale practices. 

As a graduate student, Dr. Painter was active in the Campus Archaeology Program conducting field and lab work and public outreach. He was also a Cultural Heritage Informatics Fellow and co-created Archaeology 101, an interactive educational website for elementary and middle school students. Upon earning his PhD in 2021, Dr. Painter has recently accepted a federal position as the archaeologist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service branch of the USDA in New Hampshire.

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Dr. Jessica Ott came to MSU with a background in public health focused on HIV and gender-based violence prevention. From her first course to the completion of her dissertation in 2020, she expanded her theoretical analysis as she engaged with new perspectives on anthropological analysis of violence and rights, as well as with questions of history and memory. Drawing on this knowledge, Dr. Ott articulated incisive questions and considered what they would mean on the ground in terms of gender and rights in Tanzania.

Dr. Ott’s dissertation, titled “Women’s rights in repetition: nation building, solidarity, and Islam in Zanzibar”, is a theoretically innovative examination of the historical continuities and discontinuities between three women’s rights movements in Zanzibar, extending from the late 1960s to the mid-late 2010s. Through her ethnographic and archival research, Dr. Ott’s work provides an empirically rich perspective on contemporary women’s rights and political advocacy. She suggests that contemporary women’s rights advocates are not translators, but rather strategists selecting among various perspectives and arguments that have roots in different historical periods. In praising Dr. Ott as a gifted writer, her mentor, Dr. Elizabeth Drexler, commends her ability to transform archival and ethnographic data into rich narratives filled with complex scenes and compelling individuals.

Currently, Dr. Ott is an Assistant Scientist within the Health Systems Program in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins University where she is continuing her analysis of social, political, historical, and cultural aspects of health.

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Dr. Jessica McLeod’s dissertation, “Living in Limbo: Western Immigrants’ Experiences in Japan as a Product of Japaneseness”, is described by her dissertation chair, Dr. Andrea Louie, as an important contribution to the existing literature on migration, Japaneseness, and intersectional identities. Dr. McLeod combined her experience as a foreigner who has lived in Japan with her expansive knowledge of the anthropology of Japanese and in-depth fieldwork to create a complex, nuanced ethnography.

Focusing on an understudied migrant population—Westerners who immigrate to and settle in Japan—Dr. McLeod used ethnographic interviews and participant observation to explore the ways Western immigrants’ obvious foreignnessbenefits them in the context of Japanese society. While roles and expectations are rigidly prescribed for Japanese people, she found that Westerners’ non-Japaneseness often exempts them from these norms, and functions as a “get out of jail free card” for behavioral faux pas (inadvertent and intentional). Dr. McLeod described Western immigrants in Japan as living in a permanently liminal space, never being able to fully belong due to restrictive immigration policies and race-based definitions of Japaneseness, but never able to fully disengage from the community they live in. However, despite this limbo state, many Westerners who settled in Japan ultimately found a welcome sense of freedom in this liminality.

After completing her PhD in 2021, Dr. McLeod is continuing her work as an editor and enjoying finally having the time to finish settling into her new apartment with her new husband, Ben, and their new kittens. Dr. McLeod is excited for future possibilities on the horizon, although whether they will be in editing, anthropology, or something else entirely will depend on her luck with the non-academic job market.

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Dr. Anna Martínez-Hume’s dissertation research, titled “Refractions of ‘Doing Good’: The State, Subjectivity, and NGO Health Workers in Maya Guatemala”, is described as innovative and compelling by her advisor, Dr. Linda Hunt. Based on interviews, observations, and document review conducted over five years, Dr. Martínez-Hume examines the shifting position and commitment of Mayan NGO healthcare workers in the context of a radically fluctuating socio-political environment. In this setting, perspectives of NGOs have transmuted from relying on them for healthcare delivery of underserved communities, to withdrawing support from these NGOs and viewing them as corrupt and exploitive.

Using subjectivity theory to examine the complex interplay between personal identity, organizational context, and changing political-economic conditions, Dr. Martínez-Hume provides intimate insight into evolving personal commitment, revised agendas, and adaptive strategies behind the continued engagement of Indigenous NGO workers. These insights extend well beyond Guatemala to other contexts where public support for healthcare is waning, and where healthcare delivery is increasingly reliant on the ability of local actors to remain engaged and effectively strategize around shrinking public support. Dr. Martínez-Hume’s creative use of the subjectivity framework pushes this approach to illuminate specifically how large shifts in socio-political context may manifest in on-the-ground actions, perceptions, and experiences of actors striving to address needs of the communities they serve.

Dr. Martínez-Hume recently won the 2021 Rita S. Gallin Award for Best Graduate Paper on Women and Gender in Global Perspective for her paper entitled, “‘I’ve Lived It in My Own Flesh’: Empowerment, Feminist Solidarity and NGO Worker Subjectivity in Maya Guatemala.” Dr. Martínez-Hume is currently a Research Associate within the Center for Healthy Communities at Michigan Public Health Institute where she works on multiple public health research projects as an applied medical anthropologist, particularly in the area of Native American health and wellness.

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Dr. Ying-Jen Lin came to MSU from Taiwan with a B.S. degree in Life Sciences and an M.A. in Museum Studies. During her time as a graduate student in the Department, she developed and pursued interests in working with Indigenous groups in Taiwan on issues of Traditional Knowledge (Intangible Cultural Heritage) and Economic Development through collaborative community forestry management and ecotourism. She regularly returned to Taiwan to work with Taiwanese Indigenous communities, including the Tao of Orchid Island and the Adiri and Labuwan of southwest Taiwan.

Dr. Lin’s dissertation, “Asserting Sovereignty Through Strategic Accommodation: The Rukai People and Collaborative Conservation in Pingtung, Taiwan”, contributes to the larger discourse of Indigenous Sovereignty as part of State-directed conservation initiatives, such as the Asian/Western Pacific Rim-focused Satoyama Initiative. Her research critically analyzes standard representations of neoliberal implementation of such initiatives and the often-observed outcomes of the subversion of Indigenous sovereignty and diminishment of rights and access to traditional lands and subsistence. In particular, Dr. Lin examines the relationship between the State-sponsored Community Forestry Laboratory of the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology and the Rukai people. Her findings challenge the standard neoliberal critique and demonstrate that Indigenous communities strategically assert sovereignty and agency in the development of ecotourism and natural resource management programs that allow for the continuance of cultural tradition while also benefitting economically.

Upon earning her PhD in 2020, Dr. Lin has pursued continued Academic Training through the MSU Office of International Students and Scholars with her former advisor, Dr, John Norder, and has recently joined a project as a Research Associate with the University of Michigan Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine. 

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Dr. Mari Isa’s extensive skeletal trauma research is described by her mentor, Dr. Todd Fenton, as advancing the frontiers of science in forensic anthropology. In Dr. Isa’s dissertation, “Experimental Investigations of Blunt Force Trauma in the Human Skeleton,” she used controlled biomechanical experiments on human bones to explore how fractures form in response to specific sets of applied loading variables. Her work is unique in that it uses an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the complex phenomenon of bone fracture. This approach contrasts with traditional trauma studies, which have relied on samples of fractures with unknown or unobserved origins. Dr. Isa’s research thus provides a profound contribution to anthropological trauma analysis and the interpretation of fracture patterns on the skeleton resulting from blunt force trauma.

An alumna of the MSU Forensic Anthropology Laboratory, Dr. Isa is an accomplished forensic anthropologist who has worked on the wide array of human remains cases that arise in death investigations. During her time as a graduate student, she was the lead analyst in over forty forensic cases involving human remains. Dr. Isa is also engaged in bioarchaeological research. Since 2015, she has focused on the paleopathological analysis of human skeletons from an early Middle Ages cemetery in southern Tuscany, Italy.

After earning her PhD in 2020, Dr. Isa joined the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Texas Tech University as a tenure-stream Assistant Professor. In addition to teaching courses on forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology, she is the forensic anthropologist for the TTU Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology Response Team.

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Dr. Eddie Glayzer’s former advisor, Dr. Andrea Louie, recalls how he entered the program with a developed focus—he wanted to study contemporary South Korean society, focusing specifically on gender and consumption issues. He demonstrated a knack for drawing from his real-life experiences in South Korea, first as an English teacher and later as a researcher, as a basis from which to engage with anthropological questions. His own experience of falling short in the celebration of Pepero day by buying his then-girlfriend an embarrassingly small box of the South Korean confection led him to study the relationship between consumption and intimacy for his dissertation research.

Dr. Glayzer’s dissertation, titled “The Commodification of Intimacy and Gender Inequality Within South Korean Dating Rituals”, is based on in-depth participant observation, interviews, and survey research in South Korea. His research focuses on how dating and courtship rituals in South Korea represent the commodification of intimacy—for example, in the form of monthly couples’ holidays that were celebrated through the consumption of specific products or participation in specific experiences. He concludes that unequal income between genders and classes affects how intimate relationships are expressed through consumption. Dr. Glayzer’s research shows that while one might expect economic growth in Korea would lead to increased gender equality, it has instead resulted in the retrenchment of gender norms and the creation of new inequalities.

Prior to completing his PhD in 2021, Dr. Glayzer taught at SUNY Incheon, DePaul University, and City Colleges of Chicago. Dr. Glayzer has recently accepted a position at the University of Dayton in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work.

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Dr. Rachel Elbin’s dissertation, “Tumesahaulika (We’ve Been Forgotten): Performing Development in Post-Conflict Mtwara”, explores how Tanzanian political leaders and residents of the southern region of Mtwara have defined and contested “development,” “the state,” and “citizenship” and the relationships among them across time. As Tanzania achieved independence, its first president promoted a socialist development state that would provide development to citizens who supported African socialism and pan-African solidarity. Citizens of Mtwara sacrificed in support of both visions but were disappointed when development resources did not flow to their region. Subsequent administrations adopted neoliberal reforms, refocusing the state on establishing regulatory frameworks to facilitate foreign investment. When natural gas deposits were discovered in Mtwara in the 2010s, residents expected new economic opportunities. However, plans for a pipeline that would move the gas to more developed regions of Tanzania for processing sparked outrage in Mtwara, which was met with military violence. Dr. Elbin’s dissertation examines the subsequent political contestation over gas extraction and development.

Dr. Elbin’s dissertation committee Chair, Dr. Laurie Medina, commends how she skillfully navigated the politics surrounding the sensitive topic of energy infrastructure development during her year of field research in Tanzania. She engaged with actors across a wide range of social strata, including state officials at multiple levels, NGO leaders, and community- or village-based actors who represented a range of relevant economic and social categories. Based on these diverse perspectives, Dr. Elbin provides an insightful analysis of the contested processes of resource extraction and development.

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