NC State’s M.A. in Anthropology program offers specializations in archaeology, biological anthropology and cultural anthropology. Our faculty conduct research across the globe and have created opportunities for students to become involved in ongoing studies. Here’s a look at some of their work:
Preserving the Historic Oberlin Cemetery
Professor Dru McGill’s recent work explores wealth in people and the value of the historic Oberlin Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. The cemetery was the core of Oberlin Village, a freedperson’s African American community founded in the mid‐19th century. As development threatens the area, McGill researches how efforts to document the cemetery’s history have bolstered advocacy and validated descendants’ claims to wealth in the people buried there.
Navigating International Migration
Professor Nora Haenn’s new book, “Marriage After Migration” tells the stories of five women in rural Mexico, each navigating the tricky terrain that is men’s international migration. With their husbands and sons working in the United States, will the women hold their families together? Haenn explores how globalization changes people — and how marginalized people, including Indigenous people, drive globalization.
Africans in Colonial Mexico, The View From Bioarchaeology
Assistant professor Julie Wesp explores the African diaspora by examining the lives of some of the first Africans to arrive in the Americas, in this case colonial Mexico (1521–1821). Wesp shows how Africans contributed to the colony’s new systems of labor and new urban lifeways. Through a bioarchaeological analysis of skeletal remains — in combination with historical documentary evidence — Wesp recreates what daily life looked like as Africans lived and worked alongside Spanish colonists and Indigenous people.
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