Caitlin Anderson, Ph.D.

Dr. Anderson is a Visting Assistant Professor at the Yale Sociology Department.  She received her Ph.D. in Education, Culture, and Society from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and teaching interests include histories of the U.S. empire, state citizenship projects, international humanitarian work, migration, racial subjectivity, social stratification, the politics of helping, and anthropology of public policy.  

Dr. Anderson is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Rites of Empire: Culture, Power, and Subjectivity in an American Volunteer Program. This ethnographic work explores the most recent wave of state-endorsed overseas volunteerism, situating it in histories of the U.S. empire, post-9/11 soft power foreign policy initiatives, and current neoliberal citizenship regimes. Based in Ecuador, this study examines how one major U.S. volunteer program initiated youth volunteers into imperialist praxis and sensibilities, shedding particular light on how neoliberal discourses of self-enterprise colored and shaped this process.