Anthropology Faculty

Rosa De Jorio, Associate Professor of Anthropology

Office: Building 51, Room 2209
Phone: (904) 620-1642
 rdejorio@unf.edu 

Ph.D., University of Illinois
Kinship and Gender; Political Culture, Nationalism, and Democratization; Memory, Identity, and Material Culture; Globalization; West Africa 

De Jorio received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a M.Sc. in social anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK; and a B.A. (Laurea) in Modern Literature with a specialization in ethno-anthropology from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” Italy.

De Jorio has carried out extensive fieldwork research in Mali, West Africa predominantly in urban areas. Topics of enquiry include the politics of culture; women’s networks and organizations; domestic rituals; Islam and the public sphere; and globalization. Her research was sponsored by several institutions including the Social Science Research Council, the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities (MUCIA), and the Italian institute for African studies (Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente).
   

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Office: Building 51, Room 2229
Phone: (904) 620-1625
 m.hargrove@unf.edu 
 

Ph.D., University of Tennessee
Gullah Culture of the Southeastern U.S.; African Diaspora; Race, Racism, and Social Inequality; Development, Tourism, and Cultural Commodification; Collaborative Anthropology 

Hargrove's scholarship and research interests converge around five distinct areas of anthropological inquiry and praxis: a) the political economy of racism as a "postcolonial predicament," as well as an offshoot of capitalist globlization; b) the ‘New World’ African Diaspora, particularly within the context of "race" and race theory, and the ways in which race, class, and gender intersect to produce shared experiences of local and global inequality; c) the web of relationships connecting culture, power, and history to space and place (both real and imagined); d) the politics and ethics of ethnographic research; and e) collaborative anthropology.

Hargrove's ethnographic specialization lies in and around the Sea Islands of South Carolina, Georgia, and Northeast Florida, where she has cultivated an ongoing relationship with Gullah/Geechee communities combating the forces of heritage tourism, resort, and gated community development. In adjacent urban areas, displacement and redevelopment agendas bring similar results, while tourism operators continue to thrive by exploiting an invented, romanticized version of Southern history (further developed within Hargrove's writing as an integral component of the “New South”). In this version, there is no credit given to the enslaved Africans and Gullah/Geechee who built the glorious antebellum homes, or the unpaid labor on surrounding plantations that produced one of the wealthiest planter classes in North America.

In response, Gullah/Geechees have taken their concerns to the international arena via the United Nations, seeking rights to self-determination as an American linguistic minority. With assistance from IHRAAM (International Human Rights Association for American Minorities) grassroots organizations are invoking “Africa” to redefine their predicament within a broader context as descendants of an historical event of genocidal proportions. In 2006, the U.S. Congress passed The Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Act, thus establishing the “Gullah/Geechee Heritage Corridor” and allocating $15 million dollars to the region over the next ten years “to enhance the preservation and interpretation of the Gullah/Geechee cultural heritage.” Chronicling this ongoing struggle (which is where Hargrove comes in) is of extreme significance to various Diasporic communities seeking justice based upon human rights, while their expressions of postcolonial agency and redefined nationalism have much to contribute to current theoretical (re)imaginings of the anthropology of the African Diaspora.

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Office: Building 51, Room 2211
Phone: (904) 620-1659

rkephart@unf.edu 

Ph.D., University of Florida
Linguistics 

Kephart is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Florida, where he has been since 1989. Kephart came to linguistics and anthropology after teaching Spanish as a Peace Corps Volunteer on Carriacou, Grenada, 1971-74. From this experience Kephart developed a deep and abiding interest, some might say obsession, with the role of "non-standard" languages in education, and this is reflected in his doctoral research. As a four-field trained anthropologist, Kephart teaches and writes about a range of topics that includes language, human evolution, human biological and cultural diversity, and the uses of anthropology in helping to explain and solve human problems. As a scientific anthropologist, Kephart is dedicated to research that is empirically based and that has the potential to lead to nomothetic explanations of human nature.

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Ronald Lukens-Bull, Associate Professor of Anthropology 

Office: Building 51, Room 2221
Phone: (904) 620-1648 

rlukens@unf.edu 

Ph.D., Arizona State University
Sociocultural Anthropology, Anthropology of Religion, Islam, Modernity and Globalization, Education, Southeast Asia 

Lukens-Bull has written significant works on the Anthropology of Islam. His 1999 theoretical article, "Between Text and Practice: Considerations in the Anthropological Study of Islam," Marburg Journal of Religion 4 (2): 10-20, 1999 has been reprinted and widely cited. Lukens-Bull addressed methodological and ethical issues in his 2007 article "Lost in a Sea of Subjectivity: The Subject Position of the Researcher in the Anthropology of Islam," Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life. 1(2):173-192. His ethnographic research has focused on Islamic education in Indonesia starting with traditional Islamic education in A Peaceful Jihad: Negotiating Modernity and Identity in Muslim Java (Palgrave McMillan, 2005), which examines how this community is engaging globalization through curriculum revisions. More recently, Lukens-Bull has held a Fulbright Senior Scholar grant which allowed him to examine Islamic higher education and the debates surrounding curriculum shift which in the current political climate leads to accusations of apostasy and in extreme cases barely veiled death threats. Theoretically, this work is important in understanding counter-radical discourses within the context of other Islamic discourse.

Lukens-Bull regularly mentors undergraduates on research projects. Five have received University of North Florida funding to conduct their research; two have presented at the American Anthropological Association meetings; and one has published their research in a venue outside the university.

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 Office: Building 51, Room 1208
Phone: (904) 620-1658

grakita@unf.edu 

Ph.D. University of New Mexico
Bioarchaeology, Evolutionary Theory, Anthropological Approaches to Mortuary and Ritual Behavior, Emergent Social Complexity, Prehistory of North America, Archaeological Method and Theory, Statistical Analyses and Data Management  

Click here for Dr. Rakita's Homepage

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Suzanne Simon, Assistant Professor of Anthropology 

Office: Building 51, Room 2223
Phone: (904) 620-1641
 suzanne.simon@unf.edu

Ph.D., New School University
Cultural, Legal and Applied Anthropology, Critical Social and Economic Theory, Development, Globalization, Social Movements, Neoliberalism and Democracy, Dispute Processing, U.S.- Mexico Border, Mexico, Ecuador, Latin America
   

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Robert L. Thunen, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Anthropology Program Coordinator

Office: Building 51, Room 1206
Phone: (904) 620-1655 

rthunen@unf.edu  

 Ph.D., Northwestern University
Archaeology, Southeastern U.S. Prehistory, Anthropology of Religion 
 

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Anthropology Part-Time Faculty 

Keith Ashley, Archaeology Lab Research Coordinator 

Phone: (904) 620-3869
kashley@unf.edu

Ph.D., University of Florida
Florida Archeology, Historical Process, Political Economy, Field Methodology, Ceramic Analysis