Melanie A Medeiros
Biographic Data
| ID | 3693394 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melanie A Medeiros |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melanie A |
| FAMILY NAME | Medeiros |
| SIGNATURE | MEDEIROS M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | SUNY Geneseo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7528-3151 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Emotional Intimacy and the Black Matrifocal Family in Northeast Brazil
In this article, I explore the affective landscape of matrifocal kinship in Brogodó to examine how the emotional intimacy that Black women shared with their women kin buffered the effects of unmet marital expectations, marital conflict, and divorce. I describe how women viewed their relationships with their families as a source of love and emotional intimacy that was more reliable and fulfilling than what they could expect from husbands who did n…
A marriage without fidelity is a house without a foundation: Black Brazilian women's demands for respect in marriage
Ethnographic studies of romantic love and companionate marriage in Latin America and the Caribbean focus on why and how intimate ideologies are changing, the effects of these changes for couples and communities, and the complexities surrounding the practical and symbolic meanings of money and love. Here, I discuss how in a community in which the romantic love and companionate marriage ideals seemed unattainable due to the prevalence of infidelity…
Damned If You Drive, Damned If You Don’t: Meso-level Policy and Im/migrant Farmworker Tactics under a Regime of Immobility
This article documents the sociospatial dynamics and policies that intensify structural vulnerability among Latin American im/migrant farmworkers in Western/Central New York. Focusing on the production of immobility as a characteristic facet of illegality in this region, we examine geographic, labor, and legal factors that constrain im/migrants’ movement outside of the farms where they work and the range of tactics they utilize in response. Our f…
Teaching Im/migration through an Ethnographic Portrait Project
The Im/migrant Ethnographic Portrait Project was designed for introductory cultural anthropology courses and has a threefold aim: 1) to familiarize students with research methods, 2) to facilitate students’ deeper understanding of migration by connecting course readings with a hands-on project, and 3) to humanize im/migrants by bringing students into one-on-one conversations where they will hear a person’s story in their own words. To support stu…
Im/migrant Farmworker Deportability Fears and Mental Health in the Trump Era: A Study of Polimigra and Contramigra in New York State
The Trump administration's policies have created a climate of heightened hostility in the U.S. northern borderlands that exacerbates im/migrant farmworkers' anxieties surrounding deportation and family separation. At the same time, Trump's enforcement initiatives have inspired resistance efforts aimed at mitigating these threats. Drawing on evidence from ethnographic research with Mexican and Guatemalan farmworkers in New York, we explore these i…
Marriage, Divorce, and Distress in Northeast Brazil: Black Women's Perspectives on Love, Respect, and Kinship
Using an intersectional approach, Marriage, Divorce, and Distress in Northeast Brazil explores rural, working-class, black Brazilian women’s perceptions and experiences of courtship, marriage and divorce. In this book, women’s narratives of marriage dissolution demonstrate the ways in which changing gender roles and marriage expectations associated with modernization and globalization influence the intimate lives and the health and well being of …
Race and Employment Practices in Northeast Brazil’s Ecotourism Industry: An Analysis of Cultural Capital, Symbolic Capital, and Symbolic Power
The ethnographic study of tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean offers the opportunity to examine the ways that racial ideologies perpetuate social inequality, debunking the myth of racial democracy in countries such as Brazil. In the case of Brogodó, in Bahia, Brazil, structural inequality and racial ideology limit the equal participation of Brazilians of African descent in the local ecotourism industry. This article draws on evidence from …
An Unlikely Cause: The Struggle for Driver's Licenses to Prevent Family Separation
As a result of the family separation policies that were implemented at the southern border of the United States this summer, public attention turned to draconian federal practices that criminalize, imprison, and harm unauthorized immigrants. In Upstate New York, by contrast, the immigrant rights movement is focused on a state level policy that would protect immigrant families from the separations that occur when immigrants who lack a driver's lic…
Ethnographic Service Learning: An Approach for Transformational Learning
Trends in higher education pedagogy increasingly point to the importance of transformational experiences as the capstone of liberal arts education. Practitioners of ethnography, the quintessential transformational experience of the social sciences, are well-positioned to take the lead in designing courses and term projects that afford undergraduate students opportunities to fundamentally reshape their understanding of the social world and their o…
The Other End of the Bargain: The Socioeconomics of Marital Dissolution in Rural Northeast Brazil
Divorce rates globally are on the rise, and in rural Northeast Brazil increasing rates of marital dissolution index transformations in gender roles, marriage and kinship structures. Socioeconomic change—specifically a transition to an economy based in ecotourism—impacts gender roles and subsequent views on marriage and marriage dissolution. In a context of extreme social inequality and structural vulnerability women's employment combined with men…
Im/migrant Farmworker Deportability Fears and Mental Health in the Trump Era: A Study of Polimigra and Contramigra in New York State
The Trump administration's policies have created a climate of heightened hostility in the U.S. northern borderlands that exacerbates im/migrant farmworkers' anxieties surrounding deportation and family separation. At the same time, Trump's enforcement initiatives have inspired resistance efforts aimed at mitigating these threats. Drawing on evidence from ethnographic research with Mexican and Guatemalan farmworkers in New York, we explore these i…
Ethnographic Service Learning: An Approach for Transformational Learning
Trends in higher education pedagogy increasingly point to the importance of transformational experiences as the capstone of liberal arts education. Practitioners of ethnography, the quintessential transformational experience of the social sciences, are well-positioned to take the lead in designing courses and term projects that afford undergraduate students opportunities to fundamentally reshape their understanding of the social world and their o…
The Other End of the Bargain: The Socioeconomics of Marital Dissolution in Rural Northeast Brazil
Divorce rates globally are on the rise, and in rural Northeast Brazil increasing rates of marital dissolution index transformations in gender roles, marriage and kinship structures. Socioeconomic change—specifically a transition to an economy based in ecotourism—impacts gender roles and subsequent views on marriage and marriage dissolution. In a context of extreme social inequality and structural vulnerability women's employment combined with men…
The Other End of the Bargain: The Socioeconomics of Marital Dissolution in Rural Northeast Brazil
Divorce rates globally are on the rise, and in rural Northeast Brazil increasing rates of marital dissolution index transformations in gender roles, marriage and kinship structures. Socioeconomic change—specifically a transition to an economy based in ecotourism—impacts gender roles and subsequent views on marriage and marriage dissolution. In a context of extreme social inequality and structural vulnerability women's employment combined with men…
Ethnographic Service Learning: An Approach for Transformational Learning
Trends in higher education pedagogy increasingly point to the importance of transformational experiences as the capstone of liberal arts education. Practitioners of ethnography, the quintessential transformational experience of the social sciences, are well-positioned to take the lead in designing courses and term projects that afford undergraduate students opportunities to fundamentally reshape their understanding of the social world and their o…
Marriage, Divorce, and Distress in Northeast Brazil: Black Women's Perspectives on Love, Respect, and Kinship
Using an intersectional approach, Marriage, Divorce, and Distress in Northeast Brazil explores rural, working-class, black Brazilian women’s perceptions and experiences of courtship, marriage and divorce. In this book, women’s narratives of marriage dissolution demonstrate the ways in which changing gender roles and marriage expectations associated with modernization and globalization influence the intimate lives and the health and well being of …
Race and Employment Practices in Northeast Brazil’s Ecotourism Industry: An Analysis of Cultural Capital, Symbolic Capital, and Symbolic Power
The ethnographic study of tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean offers the opportunity to examine the ways that racial ideologies perpetuate social inequality, debunking the myth of racial democracy in countries such as Brazil. In the case of Brogodó, in Bahia, Brazil, structural inequality and racial ideology limit the equal participation of Brazilians of African descent in the local ecotourism industry. This article draws on evidence from …
An Unlikely Cause: The Struggle for Driver's Licenses to Prevent Family Separation
As a result of the family separation policies that were implemented at the southern border of the United States this summer, public attention turned to draconian federal practices that criminalize, imprison, and harm unauthorized immigrants. In Upstate New York, by contrast, the immigrant rights movement is focused on a state level policy that would protect immigrant families from the separations that occur when immigrants who lack a driver's lic…
Damned If You Drive, Damned If You Don’t: Meso-level Policy and Im/migrant Farmworker Tactics under a Regime of Immobility
This article documents the sociospatial dynamics and policies that intensify structural vulnerability among Latin American im/migrant farmworkers in Western/Central New York. Focusing on the production of immobility as a characteristic facet of illegality in this region, we examine geographic, labor, and legal factors that constrain im/migrants’ movement outside of the farms where they work and the range of tactics they utilize in response. Our f…
Teaching Im/migration through an Ethnographic Portrait Project
The Im/migrant Ethnographic Portrait Project was designed for introductory cultural anthropology courses and has a threefold aim: 1) to familiarize students with research methods, 2) to facilitate students’ deeper understanding of migration by connecting course readings with a hands-on project, and 3) to humanize im/migrants by bringing students into one-on-one conversations where they will hear a person’s story in their own words. To support stu…
Im/migrant Farmworker Deportability Fears and Mental Health in the Trump Era: A Study of Polimigra and Contramigra in New York State
The Trump administration's policies have created a climate of heightened hostility in the U.S. northern borderlands that exacerbates im/migrant farmworkers' anxieties surrounding deportation and family separation. At the same time, Trump's enforcement initiatives have inspired resistance efforts aimed at mitigating these threats. Drawing on evidence from ethnographic research with Mexican and Guatemalan farmworkers in New York, we explore these i…
Emotional Intimacy and the Black Matrifocal Family in Northeast Brazil
In this article, I explore the affective landscape of matrifocal kinship in Brogodó to examine how the emotional intimacy that Black women shared with their women kin buffered the effects of unmet marital expectations, marital conflict, and divorce. I describe how women viewed their relationships with their families as a source of love and emotional intimacy that was more reliable and fulfilling than what they could expect from husbands who did n…
A marriage without fidelity is a house without a foundation: Black Brazilian women's demands for respect in marriage
Ethnographic studies of romantic love and companionate marriage in Latin America and the Caribbean focus on why and how intimate ideologies are changing, the effects of these changes for couples and communities, and the complexities surrounding the practical and symbolic meanings of money and love. Here, I discuss how in a community in which the romantic love and companionate marriage ideals seemed unattainable due to the prevalence of infidelity…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (8 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Ethnography (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Geography (3 works) · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works)