Jennifer Estes

Fellow

Jennifer Estes is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a rural community, her research examines how changes in Cambodia’s political economy shape the daily lives of youth and their families. Jennifer is particularly interested in the hidden costs of Cambodia’s state education system and the inequalities that it reproduces. Prior to pursing her PhD in cultural anthropology, she taught for two years at a rural secondary school. She later returned to the same school to conduct research with students and teachers. Her work explores the economic logics that students must adopt in order to graduate as they struggle to gain a foothold in the emerging middle class. 

Jennifer’s overarching goal as an educator is for students to gain critical new perspectives on the world around them. She challenges students to question their assumptions about what is “normal” or “natural,” and helps them mobilize anthropological insights and methods to examine the structures of power that unequally shape the lives of people around the globe. Drawing on feminist pedagogical approaches, Jennifer aspires to create active and inclusive classrooms where students learn from one another by sharing their perspectives and reflecting on how course content applies to their own lives. Students in her courses also develop their qualitative research and analytic skills by conducting their own independent fieldwork.