Amber R. Reed

Amber R. Reed is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania for 2014-2016. She received her Ph.D in 2014 from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she concentrated on issues of youth, democracy, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in post-apartheid South Africa. She has extensive teaching experience, as she combines a previous background in museum education with her graduate training in four-field anthropology. Her current work examines narratives of nostalgia for apartheid and resistance to democratic ideals among historically oppressed Africans in the rural Eastern Cape, asking how these discourses translate to youth experiences with democracy in the classroom and in local NGO interventions. Within this research, she asks larger questions about the role of neoliberal capitalism and its impact on youth in nascent democracies across the globe.