Disasters, Displacement and Human Rights

Disasters, Displacement and Human Rights (DDHR) is a research and training focus spearheaded by the cultural anthropology faculty and graduate students at the University of Tennessee. The focus also cultivates important links across the different sub-disciplines of anthropology and with faculty and students in other departments and colleges. 

The central aim of DDHR is to provide a forum for scholarly research and applied anthropological work on contemporary global and local problems associated with   unnatural disasters, forced migration, warfare and armed conflict and the cultural, political, economic, and legal dimensions of these issues as conceptualized and addressed through the norms and discourses of “rights.” 

DDHR accommodates a wide range of interests and expertise, and builds innovative bridges between UT’s cultural anthropology program and the department’s celebrated strengths in forensics and archaeology. Faculty and students who participate in DDHR work on issues such as forced migration, internal displacement, refugees, and resettlement; genocide and ethnic cleansing; cultural, political, ethnic, gender, and religious identities and issues of freedom and discrimination; legal movements for retributive and restorative justice; conflict resolution and peace-building; the political-economy of natural resource extraction and pollution; public health; and the social causes and impacts of unnatural disasters. DDHR applies and innovates upon the methods and theories of critical cultural anthropology and other social scientific and humanities disciplines.

Faculty and graduate students whose primary expertise is in biological anthropology, forensics, and archaeology also find the concerns of DDHR relevant to their interests. For example, the research and training conducted at UT’s Forensic Anthropology Center and associated Forensic Genetics laboratory, and techniques developed in archaeological excavation and analysis, have a central role to play in critical examinations of post-conflict or post-disaster situations, such as genocides or oil or coal ash spills. In this way, DDHR aims to strengthen and link together the sub-disciplines to channel the holism of anthropology into projects with important public implications both locally and internationally.

Faculty Research and Teaching in DDHR

Examples of specific research in DDHR include Dr. Gregory Button’s current research on the long-term effects of the Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill, political discourse and social formation in the wake of the TVA Ash Spill, Hurricane Katrina victims’ human rights abuses, and an ethnographic account of the evolution of disaster policy. Dr. Button teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on disasters, environmental health, involuntary displacement, political economy, and applied anthropology.

Dr. Tricia Redeker Hepner’s research focuses on recent refugees from the Northeast African country of Eritrea as they seek asylum in North America, Europe, and other states in Africa. Working closely with Eritrean communities, international human rights organizations, and legal experts, she is analyzing how the process of seeking asylum transforms Eritrean political and legal consciousness, and how this might impact the development of transnational movements for human rights among Eritrean refugees. Her research also critically examines new developments in policies and laws governing forced migration in North America and the European Union. Dr. Hepner teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in political and legal anthropology, human rights, anthropological method and theory, and Africanist anthropology.

Affiliated faculty research and teaching interests include the rights dimensions of the rise of new religious media in Africa; the concept of social suffering in war-torn Northern Uganda; and religion and conflict in Nigeria (Dr. Rosalind Hackett); international human rights law, religious freedom, and the role of non-governmental organizations (Robert Blitt, Esq.); and genetic identity, intersections between behavior, morphology and genetics, large-scale population movements and human demography (Dr. Graciela Cabana).

Examples of current graduate student research in DDHR include Master’s and Doctoral theses on topics like urban and encamped refugees in Ethiopia and resettlement to the United States; genocide in the Balkans and the use of forensic evidence at the International Criminal Court; DNA analysis and disappeared migrants in borderland regions; the politics and public health dimensions of the TVA Ash Spill; the met and unmet needs of Hurricane Katrina evacuees; and community activism surrounding Superfund sites.  

Contact Information

Dr. Tricia Redeker Hepner
Assistant Professor
250 South Stadium Hall
Knoxville, Tennessee
37996-0720

Phone: 865-974-4408
Email: thepner@utk.edu