Quick Links

Please enable JavaScript in your browser preferences for optimal page viewing of this site.

Instructions for enabling JavaScript

Kari B. Henquinet

Contact

kbhenqui@mtu.edu
906-487-1843
Academic Office Building 227

Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences

Director, Peace Corps Master's International Programs

PhD, Michigan State University, 2007
MA, Anthropology, Michigan State University, 2003
BA, Interdisciplinary Studies, Wheaton College, 1996

Biography

My research and teaching interests center around international/transnational development and cultural anthropology. I am currently engaged in two research projects that examine how Americans understand poverty and social problems in the developing world. The first explores the rise of American neo-evangelicalism and how, using the case of World Vision and its founder, neo-evangelical understandings of poverty, modernity, and vulnerability converge and diverge with modernization theory and U.S. foreign aid in the post-WWII period. The second project draws on literature in study abroad, education, global service learning, and anthropology to examine ways in which students experience dissonance in new cultural contexts and develop understandings of culture. I have also conducted ethnographic research in Niger (West Africa) as a Fulbright-Hays scholar that examines translation, reformulation, and rejection of transnational gender and rights-based development interventions.

Links of Interest

Areas of Expertise

International/transnational development
Faith-based development
Gender
Human rights
Global service learning
African studies (Niger)

Recent Publications

Kari B. Henquinet. In press. “Reformulating Participation in Nigerien Development Programs: An Examination of Conflicting Messages Concerning Gender and Class.” In African Historiography: Toyin Falola In Context. Nana Amponsah, eds. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press.
Kari Bergstrom Henquinet. 2013. “Translating Women's Rights in Niger: What Happened to the ‘Radical Challenge to Patriarchy?’” In Worlds of Human Rights: The Ambiguities of Rights Claiming in Africa. Bill Derman, Anne Hellum, and Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, eds. Leiden: Brill. Read More
Kari Bergstrom Henquinet. 2007. “The Rise of Wife Seclusion in Rural South-Central Niger.” Ethnology 46.1: 57-80.
Kari Bergstrom. 2002. “Legacies of Colonialism and Islam for Hausa Women: An Historical Analysis, 1804 to 1960.” WID Working Paper 276. East Lansing, MI: Women and International Development, Michigan State University. Read More

Recent Funding

Research Excellence Fund Scholarship & Creativity Grant, Michigan Technological University, Summer and Fall 2012. Principle Investigator. Funded $5300 for field work on project “Evangelicals and Global Poverty after WWII: Bob Pierce‟s Encounters with Global Poverty 1947-1967.”
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant, U.S. Department of Education, funded dissertation field research in Niger on “Foreign Aid and Gender in Niger: A Study of Local Interactions with Gender Policies in Transnational Aid Institutions,” 2003-2004.

Presentations

2009 “Neoliberalism, Gender, and Adaptations of Transnational Aid Organizations in Niger.” American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Philadelphia, December
2008 “Gender, Neoliberalism, and Adaptations of Transnational Aid Organizations in Niger.” African Studies Association 51st Annual Meeting, Chicago, November
2007 “Translating Gender and Rights in Niger: What Happened to the „Radical Challenge to Patriarchy?‟” American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Washington, D.C., November
2013 “Roots of Neo-evangelical Development Institutions and Visions of Modernity: The Case of World Vision (1950-1967).” Society for Applied Anthropology 2013 Annual Meeting, Denver, March

Research Projects

“Evangelicals and Global Poverty after WWII: Bob Pierce‟s Encounters with Global Poverty 1947-1967” explores the rise of American neo-evangelicalism and how, using the case of World Vision and its founder, neo-evangelical understandings of poverty, modernity, and vulnerability converge and diverge with modernization theory and U.S. foreign aid in the post-WWII period.
“Peace Corps Master’s International Student Cross-Cultural Encounters, Transformative Learning, and Understandings of Culture” draws on literature in study abroad, education, global service learning, and anthropology to examine ways in which Peace Corps students experience dissonance in new cultural contexts and develop understandings of culture. I am interested in when and how their experiences lead to improved understandings of poverty, social problems, and culture, and when these experiences reinforce or enhance ethnocentric views of student-volunteers.
“Gender, Rights, Development and Islam: Interfaces with Transnational Aid Organizations in Niger” examines translation, reformulation, and rejection of transnational gender and rights-based development interventions. Using CARE and UNICEF as case studies, I explore how personnel, partners, and aid recipients of these organizations reinforce and challenge social norms and hierarchies through constant negotiations with patriarchy, Islam, "tradition," and multiple conceptions of rights. This research is ethnographic, multi-sited, and in the Hausa and French languages.

Teaching Experience

SS 5201 – Cultural Dimensions of International Immersion and Research
SS 4030 – Senior Seminar in Anthropology
SS 3910 – Histories and Cultures of Africa

Department

Undergraduate

Graduate

Research and Fieldwork

Resources For...