Dr. Mitzi Carter is a Cultural Anthropologist who teaches courses in Anthropology, East Asian Studies, and the African and Africa Diaspora. In global learning courses like the “Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity” and “World Ethnographies,” Mitzi and her students study borderlands—how different people can talk about the same place differently, how cultural forms interact, even interactions among diverse influences on one’s own identity. On this episode, Mitzi shares her own experience with cultural discomfort as she grew up trying to make sense of her combined African American and Japanese ancestry. Mitzi’s research interests focus on the militarized borderland spaces in Okinawa and how Okinawans and US military service members make sense of these contested, transnational, and racialized spaces along the fence lines. She has published several articles on ethnographic methodology and mixed-race Okinawans and is currently working on a book based on her doctoral research.
Resources Mentioned
- Why-Why-Why Chain
- JET Program USA
- Akiko Urasaki, “Awich”
- Baye McNeil
- Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth Holmes
- The Color of Love, by Hordge-Freeman
- Mitzi Carter’s "Introduction to Anthropology" syllabus
- Culture as Comfort, by Sarah Mahler
- "Collaborative Team Learning Using Wikis," by Sarah Mahler
- FIU GIS Center
- Virginia Key
- Urban Beach Week
- "Hafu," by Megumi Nishikura
- Hapa Magazine
- FIU SUCCEED
- How to Think Like an Anthropologist, by Matthew Engelke
- From Savage to Negro, by Lee Baker
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadi
Great Quotes
“Students have incredible stories and if they use those stories as a way to kind of lead them academically to exploring bigger questions, they just, I think they just sometimes need an encouragement of realizing that my story is really striking.”
“We have very respectful conversations because we really spend a lot of time laying the ground rules. You have to do that in a class that's going to bring up these kinds of personal stories.”