Daniel Jordan Smith

Broadly, Professor Smith's research focuses on understanding the intersection of social change and social reproduction, particularly as it unfolds in population processes and health-related behavior. Recently completed research projects have investigated the influence of migration on family organization and reproductive behavior as people live across rural-urban boundaries. Smith has also studied the effects of rural-urban migration on sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS risk among adolescents and unmarried young adults. He recently completed the Nigeria component of an NIH-supported, five-country comparative ethnographic study entitled "Love, Marriage and HIV." The research examined the changing expectations and pragmatics of modern marriage, documenting and analyzing the organization and opportunity structures of extramarital relationships, investigating how gender is configured in contemporary sexual and romantic relationships, and evaluating the effect of these patterns on the transmission of HIV. In addition to elucidating the cultural context of HIV transmission in the five countries, the study design represents a methodological renewal of anthropology's comparative orientation, employing a shared ethnographic methodology to investigate social, demographic, and health processes across five societies. Currently, Professor Smith is conducting a study examining the marital and reproductive life projects of people receiving antiretroviral therapy in Nigeria.

Smith's research on political culture focuses on understanding the intersection of social imagination, politics, and contemporary issues in Nigeria, including vigilantism, the growing popularity of Pentecostal Christianity, and corruption. His recent book, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria, for which he received the 2008 Margaret Mead Award, examines ordinary Nigerians' participation in corruption, even as they are, paradoxically, its main victims and its loudest critics.