Jennifer Erickson
Professor of Anthropology, Assist Director, Center for Middletown Studies
Professor of Anthropology, Assistant Director of the Center for Middletown Studies
Jennifer Erickson is a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include refugee resettlement, welfare, citizenship, taxes, feminism, gender, race, ethnicity, and urban anthropology with geographic foci in the Midwest United States, South Sudan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her first book, Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Small Cities (2020) compares everyday practices of refugee resettlement and welfare agencies and Bosnian and Southern Sudanese refugees in Fargo, North Dakota. The book outlines the ways in which refugee resettlement has reconfigured what constitutes diversity in Fargo, how various actors and institutions have responded to refugees, and how New Americans serve as change agents in the city. She has published articles in Current Anthropology, Signs, Focaal, Human Organization, Romani Studies, and more.
Erickson teaches classes and advises undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of gender, race, ethnicity, political economy, global migration, urban life, theory, and ethnographic methods. Her immersive learning classes have included ethnographic methods courses that studied the history, demographics, and culture of a Muncie neighborhood, Muncie Parks and Recreation through the lens of the urban commons, and summer ethnographic field schools to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her current research is about public space in Sarajevo and Muncie.
Visit Jennifer's website
Pronouns:
She/Her/Hers
Education
MA, Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Oregon
BA, English Literature and Psychology, Luther College
Select Publications
2025. Erickson, Jennifer and Sandra Morgen. “DeKeynesianizing Citizenship: Ballot Initiatives, the Tea Party, and Cultural Politics of Taxes in Oregon.” Current Anthropology 66 (4).
2025 Erickson, Jennifer. “Imperial Entanglements: Afghan Refugees and the Reimagining of Midwest Identity in Muncie, Indiana.” Genealogy 9(3) 79.
2024 Erickson, Jennifer, Susan B. Hyatt, Jordan Keck, Mendim Akiti, Kiera Cromer, Alejandra Ibarra, Lanyang Zhou, Kiya Mullins, and Sparrow Cheng. Forthcoming. “Teaching and Learning Urban Anthropology in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Teaching Anthropology.
2022. “Diversity in the Dakotas: Lessons in Intercultural Policies.” Vulnerable Communities: Research, Policy and Practice, edited by James J. Connolly, Dagney G. Faulk, and Emily J. Wornell, 75-100. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2020. Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Small Cities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2017. Morgen, Sandra and Jennifer Erickson. “Incipient ‘Commoning’ In Defense of the Public?: Competing Varieties of Fiscal Citizenship In Tax- and Spending-related Direct Democracy.” Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 79: 54-66.
2017. “Intersectionality Theory and Bosnian Roma: Understanding Violence and Displacement.” Romani Studies 27 (1): 1-28.
2012. “Volunteering with Refugees: Neoliberalism, Hegemony, and (Senior) Citizenship.” Human Organization 71 (2): 167-175.
2011. Jennifer Erickson and Caroline Faria. “We want empowerment for our women”: Transnational Feminism, Neoliberal Citizenship and the Gendering of Women’s Political Subjectivity in South Sudan.” Signs 36 (3): 627-652.
Courses
- Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
- Social Theory in Anthropology
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Race and Ethnicity, and Power
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Anthropology of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
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Ethnographic Methods
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Anthropology of the United States
- Urban Anthropology
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Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS)
- International Women's Issues (WGS)
Awards and Honors
- Fulbright Award to Bosnia-Herzegovina (2020 and 2021, declined due to Covid-19)
- Provost's Immersive Learning Grant
- ASPiRE Junior Faculty Research Grant