I have related ongoing research projects linked by their common focus on the power of place in collective memory.  Two concern settler colonialism, and the third is a local oral history project involving a demolished former neighborhood of Easton, PA.  Since the study of shared representations of the past is inherently interdisciplinary, I am influenced by trends in sociology, history, linguistic anthropology, and oral history. I am especially interested in the ways powerful interest groups can actively silence aspects of the past.

I approach these questions as ethnographer.  To date I have worked with three distinct communities: French settlers of Algeria, Mormon settlers of Arizona, and former residents of “Syrian Town,” a multiethnic neighborhood in Easton, PA.