Kathleen Bubinas

Office Number: N119

Phone Number: (262) 521-5523

E-Mail: kathleen.bubinas@uwc.edu

Title: Assistant Professor

Department: Anthropology

Office Hours: M-Th 12-1pm

Education:

• Ph.D. Anthropology 2001
  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Department of Anthropology
• Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies 2001
  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Center for Women’s Studies

Research and Teaching Interests:

• Ethnic communities and labor markets in the United States
• Migration
• Asian American studies
• Women in the workplace
• Ethnography, qualitative research methods
• Urban anthropology

I am interested in the role of ethnic communities and labor markets in the United States within the context of the broader national economy.  One of the questions I have been investigating is if immigrants take jobs away from American workers and are ethnic economies a stepping stone for immigrants into the mainstream U. S. labor market.  I have explored these issues since 1999 through ethnographic fieldwork in a South Asian ethnic economy in Chicago.  I am also developing a visual documentation of the South Asian ethnic economy for research and historical purposes and assessing the economic impact of 9/11 on the local South Asian economy.  I have conducted fieldwork in India and Japan and am hoping to take students on a study abroad to India during the summer of 2008.

I teach courses in General and Cultural Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective, and Cultures of the World.

Publications:

• 2005 Gandhi Marg: The Social Construction and Production of an Ethnic Economy in Chicago. City and Society XVII(2):161-179.
• 2005  Introduction to theme issue, “Revisiting ‘The City’:  The Social Production of Urban  Space in Chicago.” City and SocietyXVII(2):157-160.
• 2005  Review of  Newcomers to Old Towns: Suburbanization of the Heartland. Sonya Salamon.  Sociological Imagination 41(1):71-74.
• 2004  Preliminary Report of a Photographic Survey of an Asian Indian Ethnic Economy in Chicago. Critical Mass (6):6-10.  University of Wisconsin Colleges’ Anthropology/Sociology Newsletter.
• 2003  The Commodification of Ethnicity in an Asian Indian Economy in Chicago. City and Society XV(2):195-223.

Fieldwork:

Devon Avenue, Chicago

Principal Investigator. 1999- present

Research consists of participant observation in the ethnic stores, informal interviewing, structured formal interviewing, and developing a visual documentation of the area for historical and research purposes.  Currently conducting a research project to assess the economic impact of 9/ll on the South Asian economy.

India

Coordinator. March, 1996

Planned and coordinated a trip to India sponsored by the American Association of University Women for the purpose of establishing a dialogue between women in the United States and India regarding socioeconomic issues of importance to both groups. The trip lasted for two weeks.  During that time the group traveled from Delhi to Mumbai (Bombay) visiting Hamayun’s Tomb, Qutab Minar, the Taj Mahal, and the towns of Jaipur, Udaipur, Mount Abu, and Ahmedabad.  During this time we visited with the Federation of University Women in Delhi and the women of SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) in Ahmedabad.