I came to the University of Idaho after completing
the research for my doctoral dissertation, and I received my Ph.D. in
Cultural Anthropology from Washington State University in 1999.
My research and study are concerned with the historical process and
contemporary dynamics of the negotiated terrain of American culture.
A primary concern is the interplay between social power, cultural form(s) and, by extension, human
psychology and behavior. A parallel concern
extends the interest in human consciousness and cultural form to issues
related to human meaning and existence in the 21st century. In my
dissertation I explored these issues through an interpretive ethnography
of Butte, Montana, a mining community with rich cultural patterns of labor
solidarity and religious practice. I continue to examine these
issues both in my ongoing research about Butte and my newer research on
gender, religion, class and popular culture. My research and study
are informed by an interdisciplinary engagement with critical and
psychological theories. In my teaching, I welcome students to
the exploration of culture, power, and consciousness in the pursuit of the
diversity of thought and its critical applications. I instruct
courses in sociology, anthropology, and
American studies along with two interdisciplinary, year-long Core Discovery
courses: “Time Warps: Religion, Science, Technology, and Cultures of
Time” and "Sports & American Society."
While I teach some courses specific to the
disciplines of anthropology and sociology, I firmly believe in the need
for interdisciplinary or post-disciplinary approaches to research and
teaching, something that has become increasingly common over the past
forty years particularly between sociology and anthropology.
I continue to develop and apply an interdisciplinary and global
perspective to my ongoing research, studies, and teaching.
One of my primary research interests has centered on
the predominantly Catholic mining community of Butte, Montana.
Through participant observation, in-depth interviewing, focus
groups, and archival research, I constructed a “retrospective
ethnography” of the community between the years of 1930 and 1965.
The ethnography both described Butte’s cultural practice and
situated it in the context of broader, sustained social processes and
structural forms that shaped, and continue to shape, the reality of
working families in Butte, the United States and elsewhere.
The retrospective ethnography involved an historical
approach both because the period of interest was in the “past,” and
because the study situated the culture of the community in the historical
development of many social processes, affecting the people of Butte, that
played out in the unfolding course of history in the industrial world. The study was also retrospective because 1) it interpreted the culture and lives of people which, from the dominant
scholarly perspective, only in retrospect seemed important to record, and
2) the analysis of the historical cultural adaptation in this community
was informed by contemporary social issues.
The study is part of an agenda to explore alternatives that were formed
historically in response to conditions and problems that endure today.
Understanding previous cultural adaptations, and contradictions, to
these problems might contribute to thinking about contemporary possible
alternative cultural forms. In
other words, with a concern for contemporary problems, I looked back, so
to speak, on Butte to see how the people of this community adapted to
enduring social problems in one historical moment.
My intent was to discover cultural patterns that may prove useful
in shaping a more fair, equal, and humane social world today and in the
future.
The study was necessarily interdisciplinary because
Butte’s economic base was industrial capitalism and its religion was
predominately Roman Catholicism, domains explored in depth by sociological
research and theory. The
anthropology perspective was important because I sought to describe and
interpret a cultural pattern in depth through ethnography utilizing a
comprehensive concept of culture viewing culture as a process of
adaptation over time. I
also wanted to link the 20th century adaptation to human
cultural process stretching back to the Neolithic Revolution, and the
origins of social stratification, some 10,000 years ago.
These domains and perspectives on culture and ethnography are well
developed in the discipline of anthropology.
In reality, the study could have been conducted in either
discipline, because the disciplines, at least among a good deal of
scholars, already draw upon one another.
However, disciplinary boundaries and territoriality are also part
of the “real” world of academia as people in each discipline seek to
distinguish themselves and their respective disciplines by securing
particular areas of study as disciplinary specialties and properties.
I struggled, and continue to struggle, with these constructed
boundaries as I strive for a more fertile interdisciplinary collaboration.
The ideal intellectual world, in my vision, would involve further
blurring of the historically constructed, and bureaucratically
perpetuated, boundaries between disciplines in a move to a
post-disciplinary study of human social conditions and adaptations.
However, given that bureaucracies change very slowly, unless
spurred by revolution, we can continue to work with disciplinary
boundaries without being limited by them.
The primary theoretical ideas and topics I
incorporate into my studies include: stratification, power, class,
capitalism, hegemony, resistance and counter-hegemony, institutionalized
religion, the process of rationalization, industrialization, consumption,
global perspectives, and cultural process.
I am interested in a cross-cultural comparative approach involving
cultural similarities and diversity through time and across place.
I continue to explore the significance of these ideas both in
ongoing research on Butte and through other areas of research including
gender and religion, popular culture, labor relations, cultural time, and
popular culture/sport.
I also incorporate these ideas into all of my courses
with the intent of demonstrating their relevance to students’ lives and
of cultivating curiosity and informed critique.
I believe that informed critical thinking and reflection enable
students to better understand their culturally constructed world, its
impact on their selves, and their role in shaping that world.
In short, it enables them to develop a social imagination.
This social imagination, drawing from history, anthropology,
sociology, psychology and other fields of study, exposes social processes,
change, inequalities, and possibilities of alternative social patterns and
perspectives. The social
imagination, once inspired, can enhance one’s understanding, behaviors,
thoughts, and success in any line of work and in realms as far-reaching as
childrearing, personal relationships, self development, and social change.
Developing this social imagination promises to better equip
students to function as citizens and as actors with the responsibility and
potential to contribute in the shaping of their world to better serve
their lives and those of diverse others.
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