Feminist & Gender Studies

Benjamin Slightom is an interdisciplinary scholar trained in the traditions of anthropology and African American studies. He anticipates receiving a joint PhD in anthropology and African American studies from Yale University in late 2024 and continues to teach anthropology courses at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. His work investigates contemporary formations of gendered and racialized labor, the neoliberalization of welfare policy, and the affective economies of nonprofit aid in the Midwestern United States through methodological approaches rooted in Black feminist ethnography, queer and trans studies, and critical race theory. He is currently working on a book-length project based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Detroit, Michigan that examines the city’s homelessness aid system, highlighting its dependence on low-income Black women as important sources of un- and under-paid labor to justify and expand program funding. While the economic impact of nonprofits is obscured by their exclusion from economic analyses, this ethnographic work underscores the profound influence that Detroit’s nonprofit aid sector has over the future of gendered and racialized labor in the lives of low-income Black Detroiters.

Courses Taught:

FG110: Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies 

FG206: Intermediate Topics in FGS: Gender, Race, and Nonprofit Aid in America