Daniel Jordan Smith
Current Research Projects

"Migration, Kinship Networks, and Reproduction in Nigeria," funded by the National Science Foundation (08/01/00-7/31/03). Migration to urban locations is conventionally associated with the adoption of a nuclear family structure and lower fertility. However, in Africa, some research suggests that migration may not contribute much to fertility decline, as the fertility of urban migrants does not always decrease. In addition, the strength of migrant's ties to their communities of origin is widely noted. Studying simultaneously urban migrants in one of Nigeria's largest cities and their extended family members who reside in the rural sending community, this research explores how reproductive processes are influenced by kinship ties that cross rural-urban boundaries and connect the lives of rural and urban kin and communities.

"Adolescents, HIV/AIDS and Rural-Urban Migration in Nigeria," funded by the National Institutes of Health (10/01/00-6/30/03). This project involves extensive collaboration with Nigerian colleagues to examine adolescent and unmarried young adult migrants' HIV/AIDS-related knowledge and risk practices in the cities of Aba and Kano in Nigeria. The study combines ethnographic and survey research methods in an effort to reveal the complex determinants of sexual behavior. Particular focus is placed on understanding the role of processes of adjustment related to migration in shaping young people's sexual behavior and on elucidating the complex social construction of risk in response to the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria.

"Love, Marriage, and HIV: A Multi-site Study of Gender and HIV Risk," funded by the National Institutes of Health (01/01/03-12/31/07). This comparative ethnographic research explores the proposition that married women are placed uniquely at risk by: (1) the worldwide diffusion of an ideology of marriage as a relationship based on romantic love and companionship between equal partners; (2) social contexts of persistent gender inequality; and (3) economic contexts of under- or unemployment and labor migration. The research aims are: (1) to compare across five developing country sites the relative penetration of ideas and practices associated with companionate marriage and the specific forms of marital and extramarital relationships; (2) to understand and explain the ways in which these ideas about and practices of intimacy are shaped and constrained by gender unequal structures and ideologies, local forms of economic organization, and cultural change; and (3) to evaluate the implications of these ideas and practices for HIV prevention within and outside of marriage.