Rebecca Gearhart Mafazy

Professor of Anthropology

Ph.D., University of Florida

Dr. Gearhart received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida in 1998. She takes an interdisciplinary approach (Visual Anthropology, History, and Performance Studies) to her research on non-western music and dance performance traditions.Rebecca Gearhart

Her area of interest is East Africa, where she has frequently lived over the past twenty-five  years, primarily among the Swahili people of the Kenya coast.

Recent publications: Observations on Eye Care in Lamu, Kenya: Overlooked Needs and Proposed Interventions (with Erick Henderson '12), Journal of Global Health, Vol. 3, Issue 1, 2013 and Seeing Life through the eyes of Swahili children of Lamu, Kenya: A visual anthropology approach, AnthropoChildren, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2013. Professor Gearhart is currently working on a book-length manuscript on Swahili expressive arts.

View Dr. Gearhart's publications

 

Environmental Studies Courses:

  • ENST/ ANTH 270: Native Americans and the Environment
  • ENST/ ANTH 274: Peoples and Cultures of East Africa