Lisa Stewart

Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Regional focus: Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, the Caribbean, the United States.

Topical interests: Immigration policy, kinship, medical anthropology, transnationalism, nationalism, aesthetics and visual anthropology.

I worked for many years in a number of fields - corporate finance, music and performing arts, alternative health therapies - before coming to graduate school. My path was varied, at times thrilling, and for the most part extremely enjoyable. But every few years I found myself pulled back in the direction of school, thinking I wanted to add intellectual backbone to the type of engagements I was having. It was extremely humbling being in a classroom again. After working in fast-paced environments, it was also tough to get use to the slow rhythms of graduate school, which I still struggle with. The professors in the anthropology department here have been the best support team I could have imagined.

My dissertation project investigates the effects that the policy of deporting immigrants has on the family members they are forced to leave behind in the United States. I focus on the experience of Haitian immigrants, asking how deportation poses challenges to identity, social relations within the diaspora, and health; and how it functions within a complicated matrix of historical discourses and policies that have continually sought to subjugate Haitians. The bulk of my fieldwork is situated in the Miami area, but I will also travel to Haiti periodically to conduct interviews.

MA Paper: 2004. Embodied Geography: The Haitian Body in the Invention of AIDS.