Dr. A. Katherine Lambert-Pennington Assistant Professor E-mail: k.lambert-pennington@memphis.edu

Research Focus

Urban anthropology, identity production, race and social inequality, culture change, human rights, post-colonialism, the state, community development, housing and home ownership, qualitative field methods; Indigenous Australia, US.

Academic Summary

Dr. Lambert-Pennington received her Ph.D. in anthropology and a certificate in African and African American Studies from Duke University in 2005.  She is an urban anthropologist engaged in teaching, research, and community engagement that focuses on the issues of race, identity, indigenity, governmentality, social justice, human rights, housing, and urban community development in Australia and the United States.

Dr. Lambert-Pennington’s research in Australia explored the ways in which changing racial ideologies, Aboriginal policies, and public perceptions of Aborigines have created a predicament of culture for urban Indigenous people, who often do not look, act, or live in ways that the state (i.e. policy makers/deliverers) and popular imaginaries expect or demand. Over her eleven-year engagement with Aboriginal people in La Perouse, an urban Aboriginal community outside of Sydney, she has played a variety of roles and drawn on a variety of methods from participatory volunteerism to participant-observer, formal and informal interviewer, archival researcher, and photographer, videographer.  These varied positionings have enabled her to develop a reciprocal relationship with the community, as well as develop a rich and nuanced understanding of the ways that Aboriginal identity construction is interconnected with every aspect of their lives. In particular, her research in La Perouse focuses on how community organizations interface with government officials and policies and the implications of those interactions for the everyday dynamics of family life and community programs and events like cultural tourism and repatriations.  She is currently working on a book based on her dissertation research in La Perouse.

In the US, Dr. Lambert-Pennington drew on her expertise in oral history interviewing and grant writing as a planning and content consultant for Rhodes College’s Crossroads to Freedom Digital Archive Project (www.crossroadstofreedom.org).  The Crossroads project links a digital archive of civil rights materials to community engagement and education.  She helped assess the local holdings and sources of potentially digitizable primary source material, including area newspapers, individuals’ personal papers, photographs, as well as mentored student interns behind the scenes as they conducted oral history interviews and processed material for the archive.

Building toward a local research agenda, Dr. Lambert-Pennington is currently collaborating with United Housing, Inc. on project to evaluate the non-profit’s impact on the residents and stakeholders in the College Park neighborhood and training and participation in the local real estate industry. In particular, her research in College Park focuses the personal and social impacts and challenges of transforming a former housing project into a community of homeowners, as well as examining the current assets and needs of the community. Moving beyond this initial collaboration, she is planning to work with area residents and organizations to write a history of the College Park area documenting the changing social landscape of the community.

Dr. Lambert-Pennington teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate anthropology courses, including the Cultural History of American Communities (ANTH 3282), Peoples and Cultures of the World (ANTH 3200), the Anthropology of Education (ANTH 4051/6051), Urban Anthropology of the Mid-South (ANTH 7411), Contemporary Urban Anthropology (7410).  Additionally, she is developing new courses on Anthropology and Human Rights and Social Identities and Inequalities, which will be offered as special topics courses in the coming semesters.

Publications

Reviews/Articles/Book Chapters

What Remains? Debating Repatriation, Culture, Authenticity, and Empowerment (Forthcoming in Oceania). 2007

Koori Inside and Out: Hailing, Difference-making, and the Politics of Indigenous Recognition in Australia (under consideration for American Ethnologist). 2007

Book Review, “Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet,” (Maria Nugent, Sydney: Allen and Unwin Press), Australian Historical Studies (4). 2006

Roland B. Dixon. In Celebrating a Century of the American Anthropological Association: Presidential Portraits. Regna Darnell and Frederic Gleach, eds. Washington, DC: American Anthropology Association Press. 2002

Ethnographic Film Review, Thomson of Arnhemland. Visual Anthropology Review, 17(1). 2002

Monographs

Representative Bodies: the Politics and Practices of Urban Aboriginal Identity (Under consideration for publication at Cornell University Press). 2007

Being in Australia, Belonging to the Land: the Cultural Politics of Urban Aboriginal Identity, Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology, Duke University. 2005

“They Taught Us Jesus Christ, Captain Cook, and Everything”: Exploring Koori Identity at La Perouse, M.A. thesis, Anthropology, University of Tennessee. 1996

Through the Spyglass of Anthropology: Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men, B.A. thesis, Miami University. 1994

Related Professional Activities

Program Evaluation Consultant, United Housing, Inc. 2006-Present 

Collection Development and Planning Consultant, Crossroads to Freedom Digital Archive Project, Rhodes College. 2005-Present

Fulbright Proposal Consultant, Rhodes College. 2004-05 

Session Organizer, Beyond the Official Moment: the Local Politics of Indigenous Recognition. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 2003               

Session Co-Organizer, Double Edged Desire: Indigenous People and Their Governance in Australia. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 2002               

Panelist, Student/Faculty Round Table Discussion. “A Threat to Justice Anywhere”: Discussing the Role of Reconciliation and Remembrance in a Global Community,” Duke University. 2001               

Grantsmanship and Collaboration Consultant, United Way of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. 1999-2004      

Student Representative to Faculty and Graduate Student Government, Duke University. 1998-2001      

Fund Distribution Assistant and Grant Administrator, United Way of the Mid-South, Memphis, TN. 1997               

Conference Papers and Presentations

Koori Inside and Out: Hailing, Difference-making, and the Politics of Indigenous Recognition in Australia. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 2006

Community Involvement and Collaboration: Rhodes College Civil Rights Repository. Symposium: Strategic Planning for Digital Assets Management, National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). 2005               

A Community School or a School for the Community?: The Dynamics of Education, Culture, and Control in an Urban Aboriginal Community. Invited Speaker, University of Memphis Anthropology Club. 2005               

“It’s In Here”: Koori Women’s Expressions And Practices Of Embodied Personhood. American Ethnological Society Annual Meeting. 2005               

Representative Bodies and the Local Politics of the Living. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 2003  

You Just Can’t Be a Fly on the Wall: Doing Participatory Research in Indigenous Communities. Invited Lecture, University of Sydney, Australia. 2003               

Indigenous Community and Identity in Post-Colonial Australia. Invited Lecture, Macquarie University, Australia. 2002               

Rules of Engagement: Blues, Thieving, and Gunjies in a Koori World. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 2002               

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Reflections on the Fulbright Experience. Invited Speaker, Lions Club, Cleveland, Mississippi. 2002               

Do you see who I see: ‘Otherness’ in Koori Terms. The Double Edged 2000 Conference, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. 2000               

“Narrating the Truth to National Reconciliation: Voices from South Africa and Australia.” Departmental Forum on Quantitative Methods, Duke University. 1999               

Negotiating Identity Among the Stolen Generations. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. 1996               

The Poetics and Politics of the Anthropology: the Ethnography and Literature of Zora Neale Hurston, Southern Anthropology Society Annual Meeting. 1996               

Fieldwork & Research Experiences

Research Liaison and Facilitator for College Park Neighborhood evaluation project, a collaboration of United Housing, Inc. and University of Memphis Applied Anthropology Graduate Students to look at the impact of home ownership on residents of College Park, a former public housing community. 2006

Intensive Fieldwork in La Perouse & Sydney, Australia, combining participant-observation, volunteerism, and archival research. Fieldwork included volunteering at local school and Community Development and Economic Corporation, formal and informal interviews with community members, attending community meetings, and participating in local cultural and social events. Intermittent fieldwork has continued from 1996 to the present. 2001- 2002     

Transcript/Discourse Analyst for Professor Naomi Quinn’s Metaphors and Discourses of Marriage Project. 2000               

Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa.  Conducted formal and informal interviews with South Africans involved in post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission programs and worked in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Archives in Johannesburg. 1999               

Fieldwork, Oxford Senior Citizens Center, Oxford, OH. Participated in center activities and interviewed seniors about services for aging members of the Oxford community. 1994               

Awards, Fellowships and Honors

Courses Taught at The University of Memphis