Rachel Donkersloot

PhD Candidate
MA Socio-cultural Anthropology, University of Montana (2005)
BA Socio-cultural Anthropology, University of Montana (2001)

Supervisor: Dr. Charles Menzies

Email: rachel.donkersloot(at)gmail.com

Research Interests: rural youth lifestyles and migration, gender and migration,rural livelihoods and globalization, political economy of fisheries-dependent communities, anthropology of Europe and Ireland.

Current Projects: My current project focuses on the gendered dimensions of rural life in the context of a fisheries-dependent community in rural northwest Ireland. Focusing on the interplay between gender, place and migration, this study addresses gender differences in the ways young people perceive, experience, and cope with life in a contemporary rural fishing community, including decisions to emigrate.
Central to this study is 'place', particularly the gendered nature of place, and the ways in which place influences youth consciousness, identity, and life-paths. In this project, it is the fishery, including its development and downturn, versus rural Ireland in general, which forms the critical social context of place. My dissertation research discusses gender differences in young people's perceptions and experiences of staying and leaving, how place influences migration decisions differently for young men and women, how the social characteristics of migrants and non-migrants differ, and how decisions to migrate are made - including how community and family pressures and factors (often intertwined with, if not instigated by, 'outside' forces) influence migration decisions differently for young men and women. In addition to my doctoral dissertation
research project I have been working on a short documentary film project with my advisor, Charles Menzies, which focuses on the importance and vitality of small-scale, traditional salmon and lobster fisheries in southwest Donegal, Ireland.

Film Project: "Small Nets in a Sea of Change: Family Fishing in Donegal, Ireland" (please visit the Ethnographic Film Unit at UBC at anthfilm.anth.ubc.ca for more information)

Publications: "Ecological Crisis, Social Change and the Life-Paths of Young Alaskans: An Analysis of the Impacts of Shifting Patterns in Human-Environment Interaction in the Fisheries-Dependent Region of Bristol Bay, Alaska." Masters Thesis, University of Montana, Missoula (2005)

Broadcast Interviews: Southwest Donegal Community Radio with Mr. Tony Callaghan. Bruckless, County Donegal, Ireland. January 27, 2008.