Caroline Faria
Assistant Professor — Ph.D., University of Washington, WA

Contact
- E-mail: cvfaria@austin.utexas.edu
- Office: RLP 3.414
- Campus Mail Code: A3100
Interests
Feminist political and economic geographies; feminist methodologies; Africa and the African diaspora
Biography
I am a feminist political and cultural geographer. I use intersectional feminist approaches to understand nationalism and neoliberal globalization, with a focus on the Gulf-East African regions. In particular my research has focused on the US-based South Sudanese diaspora and the contemporary processes of gendered development and nation-building that have emerged since the signing of the 2005 Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Through a feminist and critical race lens, I examine how the nation is bounded, reproduced and contested in the politics and performances of gendered bodies. This has included research on a South Sudanese diasporic beauty pageant, South Sudanese-American male musical performance, shifting gender norms following resettlement, diasporic new medias, and the emergence of transnational South Sudanese feminisms in the post-conflict era. My work on this activism is ongoing, with a focus on the possibilities for and problems of feminist nationalist development in the newly independent South Sudan.
Currently I am working on a project following the commodity chain of synthetic and human hair production, distribution and consumption in East Africa. I am tracing the flow of hair weaves and related beauty products from Dubai to the markets of Kampala and Nairobi and onto the emerging markets in the newly independent republic of South Sudan. Through the lens of the beauty salon I am exploring the political-economy of business development, the tensions around and opportunities for new migrants, and the shifting notions of fashion and beauty in the new nation. In particular, I’m interested in the contradictory ways in which the foreign, the modern and the cosmopolitan are both celebrated and worried over in the contemporary nationalist moment.
I teach "Geographies of Globalization" (fall) and "International Development in Africa" (spring) at the upper-level undergraduate level and a UGS course, "Geographies of Health" (fall). At the graduate level I teach a seminar on Feminist Geographies (spring). I am particularly well positioned to advise graduate and undergraduate students with an interest in feminist and postcolonial theory, ethnographic methods, and critical visual and textual discourse analysis. *I ask that you have taken at least one class with me before we begin working together on a research project.* Feel free to contact me if you're interested!
Under/graduate research
I co-founded and run the Feminist Geography Collective in our department. This brings together faculty, graduates and undergraduates from across UT (and beyond) who are interested in the relationship between power and place, and who are committed to building diverse geographic futures. Please see the link for more details.