Zandria F. Robinson
Assistant Professor of Sociology
McMullan Assistant Professor of Southern Studies
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS  38677-1848

Phone:  662-915-7430
Office:  Leavell 203
E-Mail: zandria@olemiss.edu


Biography:
Growing up with a father who migrated to Memphis from the Mississippi Delta in the 1970s and a mother who came of age in Memphis, distinctions between rural and urban ways of life—real, constructed, and imagined—were prevalent. Consequently, I am continuously interested in questions of how individuals, groups, and places draw distinctions between themselves and others and the implications of those distinctions for social inequality. I combine interests in urban ethnography, regionalism, and the African American intellectual tradition to investigate these and other questions about social interactions and inequality in the contemporary American South.

Research:
My recent research is concerned with the histories, cultures, and ideas that are generated about Southern cities by regional insiders and outsiders. I have examined Southern regional cultural distinctiveness as an “accomplishment” that occurs in film, music, and the popular media. My current project is an ethnographic examination of neighborhood cultural continuity, change, and soul on Memphis’ South Side.

Publications:
Forthcoming 2009. “Southern Crunk and Hip-Hop Culture.” In The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Vol 17: Urbanization, edited by Wanda Rushing. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press.

Forthcoming 2009. “Soul Legacies: Hip-Hop and Historicity in Memphis.” In Represent Where I’m From: The Greenwood Guide to American Regional Hip-Hop, edited by Mickey Hess. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.