| Company: |
University of Iowa, Department of Anthropology |
| Short Statement: |
I am a socio-cultural anthropology graduate student beginning work on my PhD. I am interested in disaster studies, disaster response, media studies, issues of vulnerability, and the American south. I earned my Master's degree from the University of Iowa in anthropology in May 2007 studying how the impacts of the casino industry and hurricanes are discussed in local media of Biloxi, presented as a poster at the Society for Economic Anthropology's annual meeting in April 2007. I earned my bachelor's degree in history (with a minor in anthropology) from the University of Georgia in May 2004 considering the use of historical and archaeological symbols by political leaders and nationalists in the former Yugoslavia and presented this research at the Second Annual University of Chicago Eurasian Archaeology Conference in 2005. |
| Displacement Experience: |
My research on Katrina thus far has focused on the Biloxi, Mississippi area. Some of the people I have spoken to evacuated for the storm, while others remained, and people in both categories have been displaced from their homes that were either destroyed completely by the storm or were so damaged they were torn down by the government and are now living in trailers or other temporary housing. |
| Publications: |
“Hurricanes did not just start happening”: Expectations of Intervention in the Mississippi Gulf Coast Casino Industry. Forthcoming as a peer-reviewed chapter in "The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters." |