Tangier Island is one of two remaining inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay, facing a longstanding threat of imminent displacement caused by anthropogenic sea-level rise. I examine local practices and concepts of liability, property values, and inheritance in the context of the generations-long threat of displacement.
I have been working on Tangier since 2016 and am currently writing up my research findings as a series of articles and a book.
Long-Term Research
From 2016 to 2018, I conducted ethnographic and archival research for my doctoral dissertation on intergenerational exchange (e.g., role succession and property inheritance).
I resided on Tangier full-time for over a year (2017-2018). Archival work was done on Tangier, and at Accomac, Onancock, Richmond, Charlottesville, Blacksburg, and Williamsburg, Virginia.
Research was fully funded by a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (2017-2018). Dissertation writing was funded by the PEO Scholar Award from the International Chapter of the PEO Sisterhood (2019-2020).
I have been working on Tangier since 2016 and am currently writing up my research findings as a series of articles and a book.
Long-Term Research
From 2016 to 2018, I conducted ethnographic and archival research for my doctoral dissertation on intergenerational exchange (e.g., role succession and property inheritance).
I resided on Tangier full-time for over a year (2017-2018). Archival work was done on Tangier, and at Accomac, Onancock, Richmond, Charlottesville, Blacksburg, and Williamsburg, Virginia.
Research was fully funded by a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (2017-2018). Dissertation writing was funded by the PEO Scholar Award from the International Chapter of the PEO Sisterhood (2019-2020).
Tangier Island is a small, incorporated town, just over one square mile, of fewer than 430 inhabitants in the Chesapeake Bay, belonging to Accomack County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. Its residents, called Tangiermen regardless of gender, are descendants of Bay watermen -- mostly white; lower- and middle-income; politically conservative; fundamentalist, Protestant, and Zionist Christian; and skeptical of science and climate change. Settled in the 1770s, endogamous marriage has been preferred for inhabitants during the island's 250-year history, resulting in residents who are kin in multiple ways to each other, while also holding individuated roles defined by occupation, gender, and other modes of differentiation. Their island, three ridges connected by roads and bridges, is subsiding into the Bay. Physical scientists predict Tangier will be uninhabitable as early as 2040, due in part to anthropogenic sea-level rise.
I want to know: What are the effects of the long-term threat of imminent displacement, specifically severe risks posed by environmental climate change, on the socio-cultural processes of reproduction in this population?
My doctoral dissertation addresses this question with data from fieldwork residing on Tangier between 2016 and 2018. I am currently writing up related articles and a book manuscript for publication.
I want to know: What are the effects of the long-term threat of imminent displacement, specifically severe risks posed by environmental climate change, on the socio-cultural processes of reproduction in this population?
My doctoral dissertation addresses this question with data from fieldwork residing on Tangier between 2016 and 2018. I am currently writing up related articles and a book manuscript for publication.
Related citations:
-- "That Sinkin' Feeling": Climate Change in an American Community. Book manuscript in prep.
-- Article manuscripts in prep.
2020 A Time To Every Purpose: Kinship, Privilege, and Succession on a Disappearing Island. Doctoral Dissertation in Anthropology, University of Arizona, 539pp.
2017 “The Certainty of Denial on a Sinking Island." Article manuscript. [A version was presented as a paper at AAA conference, San Jose, CA, 2018. An earlier version was presented as a paper at 4S conference, Boston, MA, 2017.]
2015 "Making Homes of Houses: Locating a Politics of Struggle in the 1926 Sears Roebuck Book of Modern Homes." Article manuscript.
-- "That Sinkin' Feeling": Climate Change in an American Community. Book manuscript in prep.
-- Article manuscripts in prep.
2020 A Time To Every Purpose: Kinship, Privilege, and Succession on a Disappearing Island. Doctoral Dissertation in Anthropology, University of Arizona, 539pp.
2017 “The Certainty of Denial on a Sinking Island." Article manuscript. [A version was presented as a paper at AAA conference, San Jose, CA, 2018. An earlier version was presented as a paper at 4S conference, Boston, MA, 2017.]
2015 "Making Homes of Houses: Locating a Politics of Struggle in the 1926 Sears Roebuck Book of Modern Homes." Article manuscript.