 |
Associate Professor.
Ph.D., Emory University.
Research Interests
Broadly, my research focuses on understanding the intersection of social change and social reproduction, particularly as it unfolds in population processes and health-related behavior. More specifically, I look at the relationships between inequality, patron-clientism, and kinship and how they affect (and are affected by) migration, marriage, family dynamics, and health behavior in a community of Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria. My most recent research project investigates the influence of migration on family organization and reproductive behavior as people live across rural-urban boundaries. A related project examines the effects of rural-urban migration on sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS risk among adolescents and unmarried young migrants. I am also interested in and have written about the role of social and political imagination in understanding phenomena such as inequality, corruption, violence, and vigilantism. I am about to embark on a new project of comparative ethnography with anthropologists working in five societies (each of us in one place) looking at changing patterns of marriage, emerging ideas of love, and related configurations of gender as a means to understand patterns of HIV transmission. I see medical anthropology and the anthropological study of population processes as vital and fertile endeavors in the larger project of understanding the broadest issues in socio-cultural anthropology.
Current Research Projects
Research at Brown
Selected Publications
'The Arrow of God': Pentecostalism, Inequality and the Supernatural in Southeastern Nigeria.
Africa 71(4):587-613.
Romance, Parenthood and Gender in a Modern African Society. Ethnology 40(2):129-151.
Kinship and Corruption in Contemporary Nigeria. Ethnos 66(3):344-364.
Ritual Killing, '419' and Fast Wealth: Inequality and the Popular Imagination in Southeastern Nigeria. American Ethnologist 28(4):1-24.
'These Girls Today Na War-O': Premarital Sexuality and Modern Identity in Southeastern Nigeria.
Africa Today 47(3-4):98-120.
Courses Taught
For current and scheduled courses taught by Professor Smith, click here.
