Zara Browne

Graduate Student
Zara Browne

Summary

Current status: Ph.D. in progress

M.A. thesis title: Radical Intentional Communities in the United States - From the 1960s Onward

Zara Browne is a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology. After attending UCLA, she went on to travel and work in the United States and Europe in a series of professional programs. After these experiences she continued to study anthropology at CSUF. With the conflation of personal and professional observations with intentional and marginalized communities both in the United States and in Europe, she formulated her anthropological foci. She aims to unpack the historical, cultural and geographical contexts, collective identities, positionality and individual experiences of the Irish Travellers, Romani and itinerant communities in the United States. She will conduct participant observation fieldwork research, social theory and social network analysis and disseminate her findings via ethnography.

Academic interests

  • Anthropology of Europe
  • Anthropology of the United States
  • Anthropology of Irish Travellers, Romani and Itinerant populations
  • Anthropology of law
  • Anthropology of criminality
  • Anthropology of religion
  • Anthropology of kinship and marriage
  • New social movements
  • New religious movements
  • Separatist movements and communities
  • Identity formation
  • Collective identity
  • Reclamation
  • Capitalism
  • Power and agency
  • Government and bureaucracy
  • Urban anthropology
  • Nationalism
  • Ethnicity and heritage
  • Immigration
  • Migration and forced migration
  • Diaspora
  • Transnationalism
  • Media and digital anthropology
  • Utilization of social theory and social network analysis for fieldwork and ethnographic research

Selected publications

  • Life Among the Indians: First Fieldwork Among the Sioux and Omahas. Publication Date: 2013. Publication Description: From March 2013-September 2013, I was a research intern for Joanna C. Scherer at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. I contributed to copy-editing, photo-editing and background library research for this manuscript. My work contribution is noted in the acknowledgements.

Education

  • M.A., cultural anthropology, California State University, Fullerton
  • B.A., anthropology, minor in French, University of California, Los Angeles