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Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests
At increasing levels of generality, my research is about: the
relationships and roles of men in families in the United States
and in Southern Africa; the social organization of domestic lives
in a comparative perspective; and the cultural meanings and social
organization relevant to social reproduction and cultural continuity.
I have investigated the cultural meanings of fatherhood in three
different groups: the contemporary American middle class (reported
in my recent book The Package Deal); migrant men from Botswana,
one of the labor reserves of apartheid South Africa; and a poor,
rural population in South Africa. My current research in South
Africa is on Children's well-being and social connection in rural
South Africa. My teaching in the department's program in Anthropology
and Population,
and my affiliation with the Population Studies and Training Center
reflect my dual conviction that anthropology can make
theoretical and methodological contributions to population studies,
and that studying population processes can illuminate fundamental
anthropological issues.
Current Research Projects
Selected Publications
2002 Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
2002 Children's residence patterns and educational attainment in rural South Africa.
Population Studies: 56(2):215-225. (with Sangeetha Madhavan, Stephen Tollman, Michel Garenne, and Kathleen Kahn.
2000 Cultural contexts of father involvement. In Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda and Natasha Cabrera. Pages 249-277. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2000 Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, (3rd. ed.) edited by Caroline B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent. Pages 120-135. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
1997 Men, migration, and households in Botswana: an exploration of connections over time and space. Journal of Southern African Studies 23(3): 405-420.
Courses Taught
For current and scheduled courses taught by Professor Townsend, click here.
