Christen Smith was already fascinated by African diaspora studies when she entered Princeton University as an undergraduate. But a class she took in her senior year profoundly shifted her perspective.
The class was on Latin American social movements, and it was Smith’s first exposure to the history of Black movements there.
She learned that Brazil had the largest African descendant population outside the continent of Africa, and thought, “oh wow, for me to really be an anthropologist of the African diaspora, I have to go to Brazil.”
That realization prompted her to shift her focus to Brazil in her graduate studies at Stanford University. The country has been at the center of her intellectual explorations ever since.
An associate professor of anthropology and African American studies, Smith has written two books focused on Brazil and co-edited a collection of Black feminist reflections from Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the latest edition of Office Hours, a Q&A series that introduces new Yale faculty members to the broader community, Smith talks about her transnational efforts to give Black women proper recognition for their intellectual contributions, the richness of scholarly life at Yale, and one of her favorite phone apps.
| Title | Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies |
|---|---|
| Research Interest | Impact of state violence on Black people in the Americas; Black women’s intellectual contributions to the Americas |
| Prior Institution | University of Texas at Austin |
| Started at Yale | July 1, 2024 |
Tell me about your research focus.
Christen Smith: I’ve been researching and writing about the impact of policing on Black communities in the Americas, particularly Brazil, for about 20 years. That work has led me to think seriously about how Black communities organize against that constant terror of policing, and the ways that Black communities have theorized and thought about their conditions within the Americas. And that leads me to look at Black women’s intellectual contributions to the Americas, to theorists and thinkers who have been historically overlooked. I started to delve deeply into why they are overlooked. How do we redress that? What does it mean for us to take their words and their ideas seriously?
Is your current book project related to Brazil?
Smith: My work is still very much anchored in Brazil and Latin America. For some context, I’m interested in rethinking the Americas from the perspective of the global South. What does it mean to think about our American hemisphere experience from a global South perspective, as opposed to a north-to-south perspective? I’m rethinking social theory and anthropological theory and analytics and epistemological approaches from the perspective of Brazil, as opposed to the perspective of the United States. My next book is called “Frequency: Black Women in the Atlantic.” It is focused on thinking through Black women’s experiences with violence in the Americas. What do these experiences tell us about the nature of time and space, and about how gender and race define time and space in our contemporary world? How do we seek refuge and find spaces of healing amidst that violence? And what does it mean to imagine a world where we are all at peace? And all of that is from the window of Brazil.
Tell me about your Cite Black Women initiative.
Smith: I started the project in 2017 because someone paraphrased my work at a conference but didn’t cite me and I was offended by it. It focuses on valuing Black women’s intellectual contributions because Black women have been marginalized and ignored. We’ve done a really good job of creating a provocative conversation. Our social media presence and podcast and media coverage over the years have helped push people to have a conversation around these things. People are rethinking their methodologies, rethinking their bibliographies, rethinking the editorial structures of journals.
I’m looking forward to really tackling the question of AI and citation or erasure. The technology is growing and we’re still learning it. But we do know that fueling AI requires knowledge that’s already been produced. And these companies are not always acknowledging the work that they’re using to teach the AI what to do. Peoples’ books are being scanned and fed into the AI machines to give them the knowledge that they need. And then when a student, for example, uses ChatGPT to write on a topic, they may be producing words that are basically plagiarism of somebody else’s work. I think Black women are in a good position to have that conversation.
What have you liked best about Yale so far?
Smith: My students — they are so amazing. I’m teaching Interdisciplinary Approaches to African American Studies, which is a required class for African American Studies. And my students are such a delight. And I love my grad students as well. I look forward to going to class every week and seeing their faces. I also love the intellectual community here. That was a little surprising — I didn’t realize just how many research groups and study groups there were. There’s always something to do and a lecture to go to. It’s been really enriching.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Smith: I love to walk and hike in the woods. I love East Rock Park. When I have a bit of free time, I go to the park, lakes, nature hikes. I love the solitude of it. I like listening to nature. That’s very soothing to me. And I love birds. I’m not a birder but I have the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell, and I go to the park and figure out what birds are there. As the kids would say, that’s my jam.
