LENIQUECA WELCOME
Email: leniqueca.welcome@gwu.edu
Address: ESIA
1957 E Street, NW
601E
Washington, District of Columbia, 20052
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS:
George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, August 2022—present
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
Assistant Professor of International Studies and Urban Studies, August 2021—July 2022
EDUCATION
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology (w/ Certificate of Urban Studies and Experimental Ethnography), August 2021.
Dissertation Title: “Where Life is Precious: The Terrains of Criminalization, Violence, and Freedom in Trinidad
Dissertation Committee: Deborah A. Thomas (chair), Nikhil Anand, Adriana Petryna, John L. Jackson Jr., and Roshini Kempadoo
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas
BArch, cum laude, Major: Architecture. Minor: Sustainability studies. Tau Sigma Delta, 2013
Thesis: “Class Status and Identity in the Trinidadian House: A Semantic Reading of the Typical Trinidadian House, Across Class levels, with Emphasis on Façade Design”
Advisor: Professor/Associate Dean of Architecture Ethel Goodstein-Murphy
Sustainability Capstone Research: “A New Garden City: An Urban Agriculture Scenario Plan for Wedington, Fayetteville 2030”
Advisor: Professor Tahar Messadi
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Key research areas include securitization and criminalization, space and place-making, processes of racialization and gendering, statecraft, sovereignty, affect, visuality.
SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS:
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
2022. " To Be Black Is to . . . : The Production of Blackness in and beyond Trinidad."Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 26 (2): 108–118.
2021. Welcome, Leniqueca A, and Deborah A. Thomas. “Abstraction, Witnessing, and Repair: or, How Multimodal Research Can Destabilize the Coloniality of the Gaze.” Multimodality & Society 1(3): 391-406.
2020. “The Infrastructures of Liberation at the End of the World: A Reflection on Disaster in the Caribbean.” Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 24 (2): 96–109.
2014. “Class Status and Identity: A Semantic Reading of the Typical Trinidadian House.” Inquiry Volume, 16, May 27, 2017.
BOOK CHAPTERS
forthcoming 2023. “Wading in the Thick: A Sovereign Encounter Through Collage," in Sovereignty Unhinged: An Illustrated Primer for the Study of Present Intensities, Disavowals, and Temporal Derangements edited by Deborah A. Thomas and Joseph Masco. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT & NON-PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
2021. “Getting Away with Murder: Reflection on Policing in the Trinidadian City.” City & Society 33(1).
2020. “After the Ash and Rubble are Cleared: Anthropological Work for a Future.” American Anthropologist website, September 22, 2020.
2020. "Editorial Note: Ecocide." Pree Issue 5, April 22, 2020.
2018. “Turn Up the Volume.” Pree Issue 2, December 11, 2019.
2017. “Violent Gazes.” Anthropology News 58 (4): e347–50.
2017. Interview with Laurence Ralph, “Episode 8: Injury and Healing on Chicago’s South Side, feat. Laurence Ralph” Anthropological Airwaves (podcast of American Anthropologist).
BOOK REVIEWS
Welcome, Leniqueca A. Review of Scammer's Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica, by Jovan Scott Lewis. American Anthropologist, (March 2022):1-2.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:
2022. "What the Sea Knows: Charting a way beyond the criminalization of blackness." Presentation at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting 2022, Februrary25-March 1. [on-line due to COVID-19 pandemic].
2021. “Toward an Experimental Ethics: Experiments with Power and the Ethical Turn(s) in Comparison.” Roundtable at From Ethics to Politics, Society for the Anthropology of Religion Virtual Spring Conference, May 14. [on-line due to COVID-19 pandemic].
2021. “Across Time and Space: Collage as Placing Method.” Presentation at Placing: New Engagements with the ‘Environment,’EnviroLab, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 18 [on-line due to COVID-19 pandemic].
2020. “Surviving the Legacy of the Plantation: The Making of Criminal Life in Trinidad.” Presentation at the Plantations and their Afterlives: Materialities, Durabilities, Struggles Conference, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal, September 16-18, 24-25 (moved online due to Covid-19 Pandemic).
2019. “Seeing Some-body: Death Archives and the Production of (Un)grieveable life.” Presentation at the Black Portraiture[s] V: Memory and the Archive Past Present and the Future Conference, New York, New York, October 16-21.
2019. “We Find the Defendant…: Defining Just Management in a State of Crisis.” Presentation at the Caribbean Studies Association 2019 Conference, San Marta, Columbia, June 3-7.
2018. “Viewing bodies: violent feeling to un-feel violence within Trinidad.” Presentation at the Caribbean Studies Association 2018 Conference, Havana, Cuba, June 4-8.
2018. “Emancipating Sovereignty?” Panel co-chair at the Caribbean Studies Association 2018 Conference, Havana, Cuba, June 4-8.
2017. “Selling the Crisis: The logics and emotions of a market for violent imagery.” Presentation at the 116th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 2017, Washington D.C., November 29-December 3.
2017. “Performing Development: Post-colonial Statecraft and the Potential of an Otherwise.” Presentation at the Caribbean Studies Association 2017 Conference, Nassau, Bahamas, June 5-10.
2017. “Watching Images: Refusals of black abjection through a re-encounter with images.” Presentation at the 2017 Annual American Ethnological Society Conference, Stanford University, California, March 30-April 1.
2017. “Image Wars: Media as a Space of Violence and Catharsis in Trinidad and Tobago.” Presentation at the Caribbean In/Securities: Creativity and Negotiation in the Caribbean (CARISCC), University of Leeds, England, March 8.
2016. “Constructing State (In) Coherence: Place-Making, Subjectivity and Governance in Trinidad and Tobago.” Presentation at the 115th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 2016, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 16-20.
2013. “Class Identity and Ornamentation in Twentieth-Century Trinidad.” Presentation at the 23rd Annual Arkansas College Art History Symposium, Little Rock, Arkansas, April 2013.
INVITED TALKS AND PANELS:
2021. “ ‘You must see it before you shoot it’: Photography and the Making of the Black Criminal Other.” Invited talk at the Race and Technology Series hosted by the Department of Anthropology and the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, D.C., November 15.
2020. “land. body. prison. dream. freedom -SCAPE: A Discussion on Visualizing Urban Violence.” Invited talk at the Penn Urban Studies Graduate Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania, October 8.
2020. “Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped by Boko Haram Post-Screening Discussion.” Invited Panelist, Wolf Humanities Center Forum on Kinship, University of Pennsylvania, March 4.
2019. “Environmental Crisis Events and the Infrastructures of Liberation.” Invited panelist on the States of Infrastructure panel at the States of Crisis: Disaster, Recovery, and Possibility in the Caribbean Small Axe Symposium, Columbia University, New York, May 3-4.
2018. “The Production of Ungreivable Death” Invited panelist at Epidermal Forensics, New York University, New York, October 12.
2017. “Criminal Lives Matter: Anti-black state violence in Trinidad and Tobago” Invited panelist at Feminist Tackling Anti-Black State Violence, The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, November 18.
MEDIA PROJECTS/WORKSHOPS/ EXHIBITIONS
2021 “-scape,” a virtual installation at the Screening Scholarship Media Festival, University of Pennsylvania, April 17.
2021 Artists-scholar workshop designed and coordinated with Shalon T. Webber- Heffernan, “Borders and Horizons: Performing and Collaging Disposability and Disappearance,” at Intimate Architectures: Displacement, Irruption, and Emergency in the Americas, Graduate Student Initiative (Hemi GSI) Sixth Convergence, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, University of Chicago. (scheduled for Oct. 2020 but rescheduled to October 2021 [online] due to COVID-19 pandemic).
2019 Documentary Photographer, “Grounds that Shout! (And Others Merely Shaking),” Philadelphia, May 10-11.
2018 Visual methodology talks, Experimental Ethnography Workshops, Shanghai, China, May 16-22.
2017-2018 Curatorial assistant, “Bearing Witness: Four Days in West Kingston”, The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, November 2017- July 2018.
SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS:
2021-2022 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship [declined]
2021-2022 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship [declined]
2021-2022 University of Pennsylvania SAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship [declined]
2018 Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant.
2018 SSRC International Dissertation Research Fellowship.
2017 The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Research Travel Grant, University of Pennsylvania.
2016-2017 The Judith Rodin Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania.
2016, 2017 Latin America and Latino Studies Graduate Student Field Research Grant, University of Pennsylvania.
2016, 2017 Penn Museum Field Funds, University of Pennsylvania.
2016 The Department of Anthropology Summer Field Funds, University of Pennsylvania.
2015-2020 Benjamin Franklin Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania.
2016 AIA Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design, University of Arkansas Community Design Center, “Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario,” The American Institute of Architects.
2014 Honorable Mention: 61st Progressive Architecture Award, University of Arkansas Community Design Center, “Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario”, Architect.
2013 Mort Karp medal for Societal Awareness in Design, University of Arkansas.
2012 Finalist in the National Gensler Diversity Scholarship Design Competition.
2011 Honors Study Abroad Grant, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
2011 The Rome program Scholarship, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
2011 The Maurice Jennings International Scholarship, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
2011 The Edmondo Vitali Endowed Scholarship, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
2008-2013 Honors College Fellowship, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
TEACHING AND MENTORSHIP EXPERIENCE:
University of Pennsylvania
Spring 2017 Teaching Assistant, The Modern World And Its Cultural Background, Anth 004, (Professor Greg Urban).
Fall 2016 Teaching Assistant, The Anthropological Study of Culture, Anth 002, (Professor Deborah A. Thomas).
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Fall 2012 Teaching Assistant, History of Architecture III, Arch 4433, (Professor Ethel Goodstein Murphy).
Fall 2012 Teaching Assistant, History of Architecture II, Arch 2243, (Professor Ethel Goodstein Murphy).
Summer 2011, 2013 Mentor, University of Arkansas Upward Bound Program Summer Academy.
2009-2011 Fay Jones School of Architecture Leadership by Design Mentor.
Community Workshops
2019 Designer and facilitator, See Lots of Imagery, photography and graphic design 8-week course for Trinidadian youth (12-17 years old).
RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
2018- Consultant, ACLA architecture firm.
2013- 2015 Intern architect, ACLA architecture firm.
SERVICE AND AFFILIATIONS:
2020 - Editorial Team, PREE magazine.
2020-2021 Director of Communications, Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts (CAMRA).
2020 Guest-editor, PREE magazine, Issue 5 (Ecocide).
2017-2018 Contributing Editor, American Anthropologist Website, Journal of the American Anthropological Association.
2018- Website Designer and Coordinator for the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania.
2018- Website Designer and Coordinator for Tivoli Stories.
2016- 2018 Website Designer and Coordinator for the Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts (CAMRA).
2016- Member of the American Anthropological Association with section memberships: Association of Black Anthropologists; Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology; and American Ethnological Society.
2017- Member of the Caribbean Studies Association.
2013- 2016 Member of Trinidad and Tobago Institute of Architects.
2013-2015 Secretary of Trinidad and Tobago Green Building Council.
2011- Tau Sigma Delta Architecture Honors society.
2010 –2011 Fay Jones School of Architecture Dean’s Student Advisory Board Member, University of Arkansas.
2011-2012 Distinguished Lecturers Series Board Member, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
ADDITIONAL TRAINING:
2019 “Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures Masterclass,” University of Rochester, October 23-25.
2018 “Inherited Inequality and the Formation of the Modern World,” Winter School and Symposium, University of Gottingen, January 8-13.
SKILLS:
Digital photography, Spanish (limited working proficiency [ILR Level 2]), Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere (basic level), ArcGIS (raster [basic level]), and Google Sketchup.
