North America

North America | Asia Pacific | South Asia | Latin America

Locality just isn't what it used to be. Migration, blended households, air transportation, and the Internet make clear boundaries between places in the world less distinct than they once were. So you can find decent Chinese food in Western Kansas, pupusas from El Salvador in many LA neighborhoods, and mosques in Toronto.

We've fielded public policy, product and design research in much of the USA and in parts of Canada. We have affiliated researchers in the New York and Atlanta metropolitan areas; in Toronto; in Salt Lake City, Wisconsin, Kansas City, and in Washington State.

Anthropologist Meta Baba, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University likes to say that "culture is change." Knowing our way around the changing cultures and languages of North America means we never stop learning about its complex and ever-changing cultures.


We've worked all across the United states, studying families and food in Washington State, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Long Island, Nebraska, Michigan and Florida. We've explored neighborhoods and stormwater pollution in Los Angeles. We've explored women's economic power in Central and Southern California, in Kansas, and in Manhattan. And recently we looked into the most vibrant economic sector of the US economy: microbusiness. That exploration took us back to Kansas City, and also to Salt Lake City and the greater Los Angeles area.