Erin Jordan Receives a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society
Interdisciplinary studies is pleased to share that, Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar Erin Jordan has received a Franklin research grant from the American Philosophical Society (APS). The research grant is covering six weeks of Erin’s ethnographic research in Tanzania (June and July 2024). The project proposal was titled, “Agricultural strategy: balancing aspiration and precarity in Rural Moshi,” and looks to build out a new chapter for her book manuscript on grounded rural development projects.
Blurb from Erin’s proposal: “In my ongoing ethnographic project, I examine how small-holder farmers cope with and aspire amidst economic and ecological marginalization in northern Tanzania. Previously, I focused on the supplemental and educational strategies youth and women engaged with to free themselves from the precarity of farming in the Kahe Ward of Rural Moshi. These include the formation of community banks, pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities and training in trades. However, government and NGO partners encourage local farmers to become entrepreneurs and seamstresses in ways that don’t address macro- or micro-economic realities, leaving people reliant on agriculture as their main source of income, despite strong, grounded critiques of their conditions. In my next phase of research, therefore, I explore the ways in which rural people grapple with the role of agriculture in their present livelihoods and aspirations for the future. How do small-holder farmers strategize within their present conditions?”
Meet Dr. Erin Jordan
Trained in cultural anthropology, Erin Jordan works with small-holder farmers in northern Tanzania to understand how parents aspire for and attempt to build different futures for their children. Her work utilizes participatory mapping and oral history interviews to understand environmental marginalization and rural people’s coping strategies. A recipient of the University of Virginia’s All-Graduate Teaching Award, Erin values creative and critical pedagogy and is relishing every moment of learning with students at NC State.
