I come to Disability Studies through a Sociocultural/Linguistic Anthropology lens. I am interested in how disability, as an identity marker, intersects with other identity markers, such as race/ethnicity, class, religion, gender and sexual orientation. My dissertation research focused on individuals, in the Pacific Northwest, who identified as African American and Deaf navigated their many cultural identities through language. In general, I am interested in how we/where we can be our authentic multi-layered, multicultural, complicated selves, and how we use language to navigate those spaces/places. Theoretical frameworks I use to explore these issues are Critical Race Theory, Whiteness Theory, Critical Disability Theory and Dis/Crit Theory. Currently, I am a lecturer in the Anthropology Department, when not teaching at the University of Washington I teach at a local non-profit educational program called Rainier Scholars.
Areas of scholarly interest: Race, language, identity, disability, intersectionality
ANTH 376: Anthropology of Disability ANTH 304: Anthropology of Beauty: Normalizing the Disabled Body ANTH 305: Anthropology of the Body