Carrie Perkins

Carrie Perkins, PhD

Faculty - Undergraduate
Generic Portrait Outline
Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Carrie Perkins is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Soka University of America. Her current research interests include forced migration and refugee studies in Southeast Asia, multi-modal ethnography as a component of digital storytelling, and urban agriculture in refugee camp design. She has conducted research within refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border and Iraqi Kurdistan as well as with resettled refugees in the U.S. and U.K. Her work on incorporating urban agriculture within refugee camps has been published in the Journal of Refugee Studies, the Forced Migration Review and has been featured on NPR. She is also the creator of “The Art of Exile”, an interactive art gallery presented in virtual reality (VR) that showcases the work of indigenous artists in refugee camps who have been displaced by the civil war in Myanmar. Dr. Perkins has previously held positions as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, Irvine, and a Visiting Study Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University.

  • Ph.D., Anthropology, Southern Methodist University
  • M.Sc. Applied Anthropology, University of North Texas
  • B.A., Anthropology, University of North Texas
  • Qualitative Research Methods
  • Medical Anthropology
  • Migrants and Refugees
  • Anthropology of Religion
  • Forced Migration
  • Refugee Studies
  • Southeast Asia
  • Myanmar
  • Thailand
  • Multi-modal Ethnography
  • Virtual Reality
  • The Art of Exile (presented in virtual reality) (2024). University of California, Irvine, School of Humanities and Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre, Thailand.
  • Perkins, C. (2021). Where is Home? Navigating the complexities of refugee repatriation. Eds. Cohen, J. and Sirkeci, I., in the Handbook of Culture and Migration. Edward Elgar Publishing. (pgs. 351-362)
  • Perkins, C. (2020) Constructing a Protracted Sanctuary Status for Refugees in Thailand. Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration. Vol. 9, p.80-86.
  • Millican, J., Perkins, C., Adam-Bradford, A. (2018) Gardening in Displacement: The psychosocial benefits of cultivating in crisis. Journal of Refugee Studies. Vol 31. Issue 3, p. 351-371
  • Perkins, C., Adam-Bradford, A., and Tomkins, M. (2017) Thriving Spaces: Greening Refugee Settlements. Forced Migration Review, 55: p. 46-48
  • Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, SUA, 2024-Present
  • Postdoctoral Scholar, American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Emerging Voices Fellow, University of California, Irvine, 2022-2024
  • American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-2024)
  • Rotary International Peace Fellow - Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (2022-2023)
  • Visiting Study Fellow, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, United Kingdom (2017)
  • The Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity, Dissertation Research Grant (2017)
  • Kemper Endowment Fund for Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology Pre- Dissertation Fieldwork Award (2016)