Dissertation Acknowledgements

Below is a “preprint” manuscript of the acknowledgements section of my PhD dissertation. I present it here not to be self-indulgent, navel-gazing, but outwardly grateful to my relations in a medium more accessible than the one hidden away in the dissertation, whenever that appears, officially finished and published in the McGill University Library.

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It is not an easy task, that of adequately acknowledging all who held me, held me up or held spaces together with me over the long durée of the Ph.D. We are our relations; this is a good thing. The interconnectivity of the vibrant global ecosystem does not exclude human relations, little or momentous. There are many people to thank from my time at McGill University, and others whom I hope will forgive me should I forget to express my gratitude to them here.

First of all, I wish to sincerely thank my research participants, interlocutors and friends in the field; all those people who gave their time and opened up their work, themselves and their organizations to me and my research questions and curiosities, especially Drew Jones, Eddy Pérez, Teika Newton and Todd Edwards, along with the dozens of people who kindly answered my inquiries in interviews, informal discussions and cold calls. I also offer my thanks also to the many lettered friends who hosted me during fieldwork: D&M, S&P, F, MB, KB.

My co-supervisors, Dr. Tobias Rees and Dr. Ronald Niezen, have been with me since my Masters research, and both provided support, insights and advice in their own ways at the varied and various stages of the doctoral project. Ron encouraged the development of my writing craft through many progressive drafts and meetings, pushed me to own the significance of my claims and supported my grounding in anthropology and the world; Tobias pushed me to become my own scholar, supported by his questioning, taught me to never be satisfied with settling and encouraged me to search for openings in both the world and on the page. I am grateful to both. I am also grateful to Dr. Jerome Whitington, who supervised a bibliographic essay, served on my proposal committee and helped me greatly, especially, during and in the lead up to the long fieldwork stage of research. I send my gratitude out to other faculty at McGill who have supported me in various ways over the years, including Drs. Lisa Stevenson, Ismael Vaccaro and Katherine Lemons. Other mentors and teachers from my interdisciplinary background helped me to get where I am, including Dr. Marianne Bailey (who took me and so many other Dark Romantics under her wings to know the joys of aesthetics, whether en français or otherwise), Dr. Eric Stein (who helped discipline me into graduate admissions in anthropology, after so much positive undisciplining at Evergreen), Dr. Karen Gaul (who introduced me to environmental studies and guided me through an ethnographic project as a first-year student) and others at The Evergreen State College, including Judith Gabriele and Dr. Frances Raines. I extend my thanks as well to Mrs. Denise Gimpel, who had the rare honor of introducing anthropology to public high school students in Michigan, and to evident success.

I also wish to thank all the academic support staff in the Department of Anthropology, including Connie Di Giuseppe, Olga Harmazy, Franca Cianci, Joanne Terrasi, Erin Henson, Shameem Mooradun and Sarah Butler. My thanks as well to the team at Graphos, McGill’s graduate writing centre, for holding the space for me to succeed, make progress and grow my craft as a writer and researcher and project manager for years at the Writing Commons in person and online, especially Mariève Isabel, but also Dr. Yvonne Hung. My gratitude also goes out to all my Writing Commons colleagues, who pushed and supported, complained and laughed with me.

I am indebted to the many colleagues and friends from and on whom I have learned and leaned. I send my thanks to all of them. To the members of the cooperative variously named the Thought Collective, the Writing Group and, very briefly, secretly, the Celestial Emporium of Uncertain Knowledge, throughout various phases and affiliations: Fiona Gedeon Achi, Dörte Bemme, Darcie DeAngelo, Raad Fadaak, Kristin, Flemons, Nicole Rigillo, Jonathan Wald and Julianne Yip. You all have helped me become the scholar and person I am, invested in high standards, collaboration and holding each other up. Kristin, thank you for being the DM, for the Big Laughs and vulnerability, lessons on diving in and for just getting it. Raad, thank you for being the GM, for the companionship, for sharing living space and worlds together, the childlike curiosity, laughs and serious friendship. Julianne, my thanks for the trips and emotional support, The Big Apple, and all the comments on all the drafts and applications. Federico De Musso also deserves my praise and thanksgiving for sharing much living and working space and so much breath-stopping laughter; here’s to much more collaboration to come. Saman Tabasi Nejad has been a stalwart friend for years and through adversity; I thank her for her commitment to making the world a better place, to aesthetics, to relations, to joy. Alonso Gamarra has entrusted me with so much as a friend and scholar, from listening and speaking, knowledge and poiesis, art and music, to our shared commitment to ethics-politics and absurdist giggles. Alejandra Melian-Morse has taught me much and many things: about myself and/in the world; about ethics, rest and care; the expansive growth of capacities of all kinds; collaboration and dedication; the staying power of thin white scars and thin white cat hairs.

I would not have made it to where I am without the additional camaraderie, friendship, knowledge and support of other colleagues and cohort-mates at and around McGill Anthropology, especially Mónica Cuéllar Gempeler, Miranda Dahlin, Luís Ferrer, Graham Fox, Kathleen Godfrey, Naïm Jeanbart, Ian Kalman, Kariuki Kirigia, Marie Lecuyer, Perry Maddox, Karen McAllister, Kit Mitchell, Ferran Pons Raga, Maresi Starzmann and Fern Thompsett, among many others. I offer mes mille mercis also to friends in Montréal outside of the Department of Anthropology: Louma Meunier, for all the complaints and commiserations and co-working sessions over many years; Yara El-Soueidi, Jon Kekarainen, Chloé El Sayegh for coming to call at my balcony and pull me back into the real world; Emily McIntosh, for the shows, talks and bike rides that kept me sane near the end; Luc Villandré for the conversation, sport and willingness to try new places; Angie Sassi for the love of life and for living with me (literally, figuratively) through the star wars, fight nights, demanding times and bumpy rides. Within academia and outside McGill, my fellow Contributing Editors of the Society for Cultural Anthropology’s Social Media Team have shone a warm light on a better possible future for academia, based in relation, collective holding up and “handling it,” including but not limited to: Hilary Agro, Brea Escamilla, Kristin Gupta, Jessica Madison Pískatá, Hannah Quinn, Scott Ross, Jenny Shaw and Lachlan Summers.

To all of my family, especially Mom, Dad, Kathleen and Mark, Jay and Wilmary, I’m eternally grateful for the unyielding support, packages, advice and encouragement since the beginning—and for hosting me during months of remote fieldwork from Michigan, Massachusetts and Vermont. I love you all. Finally, I extend my gratitude to all of life’s little inspirations, which have taught me to presume nothing and make poetry of situations. Another world is possible.