Jennifer Sweeney Tookes

Biography

Jennifer Sweeney Tookes is an Applied Cultural Anthropologist who has conducted Anthropological research in the Southeastern US (Georgia and South Carolina) and the Caribbean (Barbados, US Virgin Islands) since 2003.  Her doctoral training emphasized the African diaspora, Afro-Caribbean cultures, and the migration of Caribbean peoples to the Southeast United States. Dr. Sweeney Tookes is excited to bring a pan-Caribbean perspective on the culture and heritage of the African diaspora to Georgia Southern.

Affiliate Classes:

• ANTH 3335 Caribbean Cultures
  • This course examines significant themes in the anthropology of the Caribbean region, such as nationality, ethnicity, economics, transnationalism, globalization, family and gender systems. Study of these issues is situated in the history of slavery and indenture in the region.
• ANTH 4336 Medical Anthropology
  • This course provides an integrative and multidisciplinary approach to medical anthropology by exploring perspectives relating to global and cross-cultural issues of human health, body, sickness, disease, health, and culture. In particular, this course integrates biocultural viewpoints, which incorporate how people interact with their environment, and cultural viewpoints that attempt to understand the ideas, beliefs, and values that shape human.
    Ethnicity, Race, and Inequality is one of the four modules of this course. That module focuses on cultural experiences of racism, global inequality related to skin color, and the intersection of race and medical care.
• ANTH 4340 Anthropology of Foodways
  • This course examines foodways, a central focus of Anthropology since the earliest days of the discipline. Our study is situated within the global political economy and focused on anthropology’s unique contribution to the study of foodways. Topics will include cultural practices surrounding food selection, preparation, sharing, and consumption in a variety of cultures and contexts.
    Southern Foodways are one of the four modules in this course. That section focuses on the development of African American food practices, their centrality to “Southern” and “Soul” food, cultural appropriation of these food practices, and the relationship between food, ethnic identify, and prejudice.
• ANTH 2231 Biological Anthropology
  • This course examines social life and physical diversity in the context of hominin evolution. Key areas of study include the fossil record, basic genetics, primatology, human variation, and the evolution of communication.
    A key SLO of this course is a scientific understanding of human variation in skin color related to the cultural notion of race.
• ANTH 2331 Cultural Anthropology
  • This course is an exploration of the nature, structure, and dynamics of human cultural systems. Cultural patterns are used as a lens to examine what makes us uniquely human. Students will gain a better understanding and appreciation of difference and diversity through the practice of cultural relativity and a better grasp of how and why people, including ourselves, live as they do.
    Key topics in this course include human variation relating to skin color, and cultural experiences of race and racism.  African and African-diasporic cultures are included in the large variety of global case studies presented.

Last updated: 7/21/2022