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Mary Kenny

Professor Emeritus - Anthropology
Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology and Social Work
Biography

Dr. Kenny has conducted research in Brazil, Jamaica and the United States. Her research focuses on Afro-Brazilian culture and politics, child labor, migration and public health (community health assessments, reproductive rights). She has worked with UNFPA in Mongolia and New York, the NYCDOH (AIDS Research Unit) and was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines (Community Health). She earned her M.P.H. (Public Health) and Ph.D. (Anthropology) from Columbia University.

Research Interests
  • Heritage
  • Brazil
  • Identity
Of Note

Dr. Kenny was a Resident Scholar at the Smithsonian Institution, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

Teaching Interests
  • Research Methods (ethnography, community health)
  • Medical Anthropology
  • Anthropology of Violence
Publications

Deeply rooted in the present: heritage, memory and identity in Brazilian quilombos. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (2018)

Hidden Heads of Households: Child Labor in Northeast Brazil. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (2007)

Child Labor. In Oxford Bibliographies Online, Childhood Studies, Heather Montgomery, ed. New York: Oxford University Press (2017)

Paisagens da Memória: os campos de concentração e a seca no Nordeste do Brasil. Revista Tendências: Caderno de Ciências Sociais. 8:199-234 (2015)

The Emerging Haitian Diaspora in Brazil. Wadabagai: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Global Diasporas summer/fall (2015)