As an anthropologist, archivist, and artist, I am drawn to the textures of the everyday–the rituals, refusals, and creative expressions that shape how we live, remember, and imagine, infinitely.
- How does our connection to the earth encourage artistic exploration and expansion?
- What forms of creativity both generate oppression and liberation?
- What cultural practices remain meaningful in times of uncertainty and injustice?
I am concerned with how personal and collective histories are documented, expressed, and transformed by the world’s most vulnerable.
I have an eclectic background that informs the layered nature of my practice. I hold a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles; a dual M.A. in International and Public Affairs from Columbia University and L’Institut de Sciences Politiques (Sciences Po); and a B.A. in Political Science from Howard University.
Before anthropology, I served as a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State—posted in South Africa and Malaysia—and worked with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the U.S. Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in the Senate office of former President Barack Obama.
My applied research spans continents and communities: I’ve supported Black and Indigenous programs in Colombia as a Fulbright Fellow, consulted on housing microfinance in Nigeria, developed leadership trainings for minority political leaders in Europe, and contributed to health worker training initiatives in California. Most recently, I provided archival consultation for the Black Baltimore Digital Database and taught Medical Anthropology at my alma mater, Howard University.
I am a Black American woman, rooted in Ghana and Ohio, born and raised in Northwest Washington, D.C.
Interests
Blackness Across Borders | Objects & Rituals of Diasporic Memory | Decolonial Pedagogy | Ethnographic Creativity & Expression | Anthropologies of State Power, Bureaucracies, and Global Empires
naakoshie awurama mills 