Ethnographic Field School for Risk and Disaster

My research in Gulf Coast communities after Katrina and Harvey aroused my interest in integrating students into the important work of better understanding the complexities of risk and disaster. I conceived and organized this field school on the Texas coast in collaboration with Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Housed on the university campus, students benefitted from the expertise of geospatial scholars at the Conrad Buchler Institute. Classroom instruction focused on accelerated learning of qualitative and quantitative research methods and social science approaches to the study of risk and disaster. Students also conducted intensive fieldwork with survivors in the coastal community of Rockport, Texas, where Harvey made landfall. They interviewed residents from three neighborhoods and generated participatory mapping projects related to risk perception using GIS and story maps.
The outcome of this marvelous hands-on experience in documenting impacts of disaster and perceptions of future risk are analyzed and presented in the 44-page “Research Report: Rockport Residents and Life After Harvey.”
The Ethnographic Field School came to life during its inaugural summer, 2019 and affirmed for the Rockport community the value of their stories and the truth of their suffering. COVID-19 forced a cancellation of both the 2020 and 2021 ethnographic field school,. Still, the singular experience and stellar work achieved by 15 students will not be forgotten, as the Research Report testifies.
For information about other innovative class projects, including a COVID-19 study of livelihoods and public outreach assignments like a podcast series, learn more here:
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Research Methods 2021 class and COVID-19 Study of Impact on different livelihoods.

“Here and Now: Life in a Pandemic.” STUDENT POSTER AND DIGITAL BOOK. Research Methods class and COVID-19 Study of Impact on different livelihoods. In Spring 2021, anthropology students enrolled in Browne’s Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology class (ANTH 441) undertook a collective study of the impacts of COVID-19 on Fort Collins residents in different livelihoods. To our knowledge, this study represents the first social science study to examine how one’s livelihood may impact their experience of the pandemic. View the poster here; view the 58-page digital book here.

Development of new class, Public Anthropology and Global Environmental Challenges with assignments to reach broader publics.

First taught Spring 2018. Students read public scholarship about environmental topics, translated academic articles into public-facing work, and wrote weekly blogs and multiple op-eds for major newspapers, Small class published op-ed pieces reaching more than 1,500,000 readers. Story about class

Public Anthropology class, taught in 2020.

This time, students wrote blogs, op-eds, and developed original podcasts about environmental challenges as part of a series “Takes from the Anthropocene” that was broadcast on KCSU campus radio and uploaded on Apple and Spotify podcast platforms.

ALL PROJECTS