Research

I practiced journalism in Missouri and Oregon before earning my M.A. degree (Oregon State University) in applied anthropology and my Ph.D. (The University of Arizona) in cultural anthropology. I have conducted fieldwork in Italy, Micronesia, Oregon and Arizona. My articles have appeared in a range of publications.

A political economy perspective informs my work into local and global dimensions of the politics of low fertility in Italy. My book, A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy, is a culmination of my research interests concerning issues of culture and power in the context of a transforming and transnational Europe. I draw on my training in cultural and linguistic anthropology to investigate the cultural politics of gender, class, race/ethnicity and whiteness. I view history and memory as critical to grasping cultural reproduction as well as cultural transformation.

Recent Publications

Books

(Forthcoming) Unraveled: A Weaver’s Tale of Life Gone Modern. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Under contract for 2009 publication.)

book cover2005         A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy. Case Studies on Contemporary Social Issues. John A. Young, series editor. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Articles and Book Chapters

2007 Memory and Meaning: Genealogy of a Fertile Protest. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 12(4): 406-416.

2007 Fertility Politics as ‘Social Viagra’: Reproducing Boundaries, Social Cohesion and Modernity in Italy. Co-authored with Milena Marchesi. American Anthropologist 109(2): 350-362.

2007 From Explosion to Implosion: A Call for Population Skepticism. In Babies, Burdens and Threats: Current Faces of Population Control. Pp. 13-16. Amherst: Population and Development Program. http://popdev.hampshire.edu.

2007 From Explosion to Implosion: A Call for Population Skepticism. DifferenTakes, No. 46 (Spring): 1-4.

2006 “Dangerous Demographies and the Scientific Manufacture of Fear.” The Corner House, Sarah Sexton, ed., Briefing paper No. 36, (June 2006). http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/

2006 ‘You Have to Start with Something’: Towards an Ethnographic Research Agenda for Modern Italy. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 11(3): 393-403.

2005       “Encounters with ‘the Peasant’: Memory Work, Masculinity, and Low Fertility in Italy.” American Ethnologist 32(4): 593-617. PDF (308 KB)

2005       “ ‘Toys and Perfumes’: Imploding Italy’s Population Paradox and Motherly Myths.” In Barren States: The Population “Implosion” in Europe, edited by Carrie B. Douglass. Pp. 159-182. London: Berg.

2005       “In Search of Community Conscious Capitalism,” Anthropology Newsletter PDF (612 KB), February, 46(2): 41-42.

2003  “Italy,” In The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women’s Issues Worldwide: Europe. Pp. 341-372. Lynn Walter, ed. Westport, CN: Greenwood Publishing Group.

2003b       “Raffaele Corso, La vita sessuale nelle credenze, pratiche e tradizioni popolari italiane,” (book review essay), Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8(1): 108-111.

2002       “Olympic Might,” Newsday. Sunday, Feb. 12, 2002. Pp. B4, B7.

2001       “‘Empty Cradles’ and the Quiet Revolution: Demographic Discourse and Cultural Struggles of Gender, Race, and Class in Italy,” Cultural Anthropology 16(4): 576-611. PDF (2.7 MB)

1998       “‘The Bead of Raw Sweat in a Field of Dainty Perspirers’: Nationalism, Whiteness, and the Olympic Class Ordeal of Tonya Harding,” Transforming Anthropology  (7)1:33-52. PDF (2 MB)

1994    “Forward vs. Reverse Gear: Politics of Proliferation and Resistance in the Italian Fascist State,” Journal of Historical Sociology, 7(3): 261-288.

1992    “The Looking Glass of Historic Preservation: A Reflection of Modernization and Changing Values,” Peter New Award Paper, Human Organization 51(2): 97–201.

Book Reviews

2008     Sheltering Women: Negotiating Gender and Violence in Northern Italy. Sonja Plesset.
Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006. Journal of Anthropological Research 64
(Spring):96-97.

2007    Carol Helstosky, Garlic & Oil: Food and Politics in Italy. 2004. (2006 paperback edition.)
Oxford: Berg. South European Society & Politics 12(2): 255-57.

2003    “Raffaele Corso, La vita sessuale nelle credenze, pratiche e tradizioni popolari
italiane,” (book review essay), Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8(1): 108-111.

Popular Articles and Op-Eds

2008    Intimate Borton school puts the children first, Guest Opinion, The Arizona Daily Star.
April 3, p. A9.

2007    The Evolution of the Family. UMASS Amherst (Summer).
http://umassmag.com/2007/Summer2007/Features/evolution_family.html

2007     From Explosion to Implosion: A Call for Population Skepticism. DifferenTakes, No.
46 (Spring 2007): 1-4.

2005    In Search of Community Conscious Capitalism, Anthropology News, February,
46(2): 41-42.

2002    Olympic Might. Newsday (Sunday) Feb. 12, 2002. Pp. B4, B7.