Hello! I’m an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University. I use ethnographic methods to study the politics of development, environmental change, and technology.
I’ve spent over a decade researching a complex and contested global effort to introduce genetically modified crops to Ghana. I study “up, down, and sideways,” meaning I am interested in how actors and power across scale, from multinational corporations to Ghanaian farmers, shape foodways. My book on this research – We are not starving: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty in Ghana – received the 2024 Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology for “interpret[ing] anthropological data and principles in ways that make them meaningful to a broadly concerned public.” It is now available open-access.
To date, my research has been funded by the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the British Academy, and has been featured in African Affairs; Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment; Development & Change; The Nation; Nature Bioengineering; and beyond. My work has also appeared in The Economist, Associated Press, and more. A full list of my publications can be found here.
I hold a PhD and MA in Anthropology from American University, and a BA in International Studies from the University of California-San Diego. My previous posts include lectureships at the University of Cambridge and University of California-Berkeley, and postdoctoral fellowships at New York University and Dalhousie University.
Joeva Sean Rock 