Research Interests

My current project is a political history of rain in the Uluguru Mountains, a key water catchment area in Tanzania. This work explores long struggles over sacred rainmaking practices, as well as over a century of colonial and state interventions premised on protecting and controlling water. I draw on this historical perspective to understand how farmers in the mountains today are navigating the new pressures brought by global climate change.

My research lies at the intersection of environmental studies, the anthropology of religion, gender studies and political economy. It also concerns agrarian issues, kinship, and non-biomedical forms of healing.

Refereed Publications

Naming Matters: Inheritance, Land, and Reproductive Labor in Rural Tanzania. Feminist Anthropology 1(2) (forthcoming)

Presentations

2019

Haunted Properties: Colonial Striations and Cursed Resources in the Geographies of Small-Scale Mining, Uluguru, Tanzania. American Anthropological Association & Canadian Anthropological Society Annual Meeting. Vancouver, Canada. November 20-24

Vampires, Witches and Evil Spirits: Situating the Ethnographer Among Monsters. New York University Anthropology Undergraduate Student Association. October 26. (Invited talk)

Villagization Revisited: Land, Gender, and Indigeneity in Tanzanian Socialism and its Aftermath. The 2019 Annual Soyuz Symposium. Beyond the Soviet Slot: Race, Indigeneity & Identity. Pittsburgh, PA. March 29-30

2015

Neo-Pentecostalism, “Prosperity Gospels” and the Moral Economy of Care. American Anthropological Association. Denver, CO. November 16-20

Inequality and the “Prosperity Gospel”: Christianity, Morality and Miraculous Redistribution in the 21st Century. Society for the Anthropology of North America. New York. April 16-18