Anthropology

Ashley May

ashley_may@brown.edu
Website
Research Interests Childhood, Kinship, Landscape and memory, Legacies of conquest and enslavement, Folk belief and ritual , US South, Northeast Africa, Caribbean, Historical Anthropology and Archaeology, Visual anthropology

Biography

Areas of Interest

While at Brown, Ashley will explore the intricacies of place, the sociohistorical elements of cultural transmission, and the histories of displacement and dispossession that form a distinct, collective memory and identity for Black children and their kin across the diaspora.  Ashley’s initial set of questions seeks to understand the folk beliefs, rituals, and values that nourish Black children’s worldmaking, how they inhabit a place in relation to its many histories, human and more-than-human, and the quotidian practices Black children and their kin engage in to create sanctuary in the ongoing presence of subjection.

Previous Degrees

  • BA Women’s Studies, UCLA, 2001
  • MS Education, University of Southern California, 2004