Andrew Nelson

Background

About Andrew Nelson

My research explores what policy means in practice, or more specifically, how people (organized, for example, as neighborhoods, diasporic communities, students, tenants) respond to the failures and violence of policy. I find ethnographic inspiration in the ways groups forge notions of solidarity, community, and home amid precarious conditions. Research fieldsites have ranged from the urbanizing periphery of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, to resettled refugees buying houses in Texan suburbs, and global migrants negotiating the bottlenecks of Latin American transit migration.My current research on housing justice in north Texas has two aims. One is to make the eviction court process more transparent for tenants and housing advocates. The second is to privilege a tenant's perspective in reconceptualizing the value of housing beyond current market-dominant notions. More broadly, I seek to combine research with writing and teaching pursuits that contribute to applied anthropology. For instance, how ethnography-journalism collaborations might contribute to public anthropology, and project-based teaching/mentoring might strengthen local advocacy and activism efforts.