My research probes the ecological and political-economic forces that have shaped life in the American West. As a scholar of the landscapes of settler-colonialism, I contend that attention to the desert provides an analytical framework for examining the materialities and limitations of the narrative of ecological and economic abundance that has until now shaped much of life in the US. My current project examines the American “good life,” a promise of intergenerational success, post-work leisure, and cultural stability.

My dissertation was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Society of the Anthropology of Work, the Anthropology Department at the University of Chicago, and the David R. and Mady W. Segal Fund for Social Sciences Research on Military Personnel.

METHODS: oral history interviews; qualitative interviews; focus groups; archival research; surveys.

Other projects include: a collaborative project on the experiences of the “sandwich generation,” working with my relatives and women who care for their aging parents; and a project looking at drought and aquifer overuse in the Colorado Lower Basin States.