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Meghan Donnelly

Education

  • BA Philosophy, Boston College 2004
  • MA Social Sciences, University of Chicago 2008
  • Advanced to Candidacy 2014

Research Focus

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with Mexican journalists, my research examines how journalism is practiced - and how journalists persevere - in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Over the past decade, Mexico has witnessed a dramatic increase in violence, accompanied by pervasive corruption and impunity, and has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for the practice of journalism. My dissertation argues that in this context journalists' practices are oriented toward imagining and sustaining possible truths, publics, and futures for Mexico. It offers an on the ground account of the improvised practices through which they keep these possibilities alive, even as the likelihood of actual change seems increasingly small.

Keywords: Journalism, Media, Violence, the State, Mexico, Latin America

Selected Publications

"Malpensado: Navigating Uncertainty and Protecting Possibility"
Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association Conference, Nov. 2016

"The Missing Body in and of Mexican News Articles"
Paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association Conference, May 2016

"The Co-elaboration of News about Violence in Mexico"
Paper presented at the Society for Cultural Anthropology Meeting, May 2016

Teaching

Instructor of ANT2 (Introduction to Cultural Anthropology) Spring 2017

Instructor of ANT144 (Anthropology of Latin America) Summer 2014

Awards

Mabelle McLeod Lewis Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2017-2018

SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2015-2016

UC MEXUS Dissertation Research Grant, 2015-2016

UC Davis Hemispheric Institute on the Americas Summer Research Grant, 2013