Jamie Johnson

UNT Faculty Profile: Jamie Johnson

Human beings dwell in nearly every earthly niche. And although our heritage may tie us to some bucolic place in time, more than half of humanity lives in cities. The socio-cultural, ideological, and material adaptations to urban environments form the backdrop of my work. As an applied urban anthropologist and Senior Lecturer given to studying human arrangements, my scholarly pursuits and teaching interests include the built environment, material culture and global supply chains, NGOs and D/development in the neoliberal era, the global tourism industry, and gender and power, broadly construed. I combine anthropological investigation and pedagogy by collaborating with stakeholders on projects whose dual purpose is to train our students in applied research. Ethnographic flexibility and sensitivity informs this goal, as my students and collaborators explore the intimate spaces of daily life, the institutions and infrastructures that bind them, and the precarity of those arrangements given the whole of human agency. My doctoral work highlighted "heritage construction sites" as ongoing contestations of cultural heritage in the rugged Himalayan tourist destination of Leh, Ladakh - India. Back home, my recent projects in urban ecology examine suburban residential perceptions of the water-energy nexus, and are informed by a four-field approach to the human experience.

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Education

2014 PhD Anthropology, Syracuse University

2007 MA Anthropology, Syracuse University

2001 BA Anthropology, University of North Texas

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Selected Consulting Projects

WEAT - Water Environment Association of Texas

NTMWD - North Texas Municipal Water District

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Selected Presentations

2016 Paper Presentation. "Volunteerism or Applied Anthropology? Development Discourses in Leh, Ladakh." SfAA Annual Meetings, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

2015 Paper Presentation. "Estrangement from Familiar Ground: Limestone and Livelihoods in Lueders, W. Texas" AAA Annual Meetings, Denver, CO.

2015 Invited Lecture: "Spaces of Rest: An Anthropological Perspective" Crow Collection of Asian Art Wellness Series, Dallas, Tx.

2015 Paper Presentation. "Making Distinctions: Anthropological Mediation and Volunteer Tourism" AES Annual Meetings, San Diego, CA

2009 Paper Presentation. "A Concrete Understanding: Architectural Heritage in Guest House Construction." AAA Annual Meetings, Philadelphia, PA

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Selected Courses Taught

On-campus: Anthropology of Non-Governmental Organizations (cross-listed), Ethnographic and Qualitative Research Methods (graduate-level), Introduction to Anthropology, Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Peoples and Cultures of South Asia, Anthropology of Tourism (cross-listed), Urban Anthropology; Blackboard: American Culture and Society, Ethnographic and Qualitative Research Methods for Non-majors, Graduate Seminar in Sociocultural Anthropology, Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Course Designer)