Erin Williamson arrived at Darwin as a Gates Scholar in 2018. She graduates tomorrow with a PhD in Social Anthropology, a husband, two children, and a new name – Erin Wimmer – having also weathered a global pandemic. There are certainly more peaceful pathways to educational success, though possibly not more satisfying ones.
“I’d hoped to complete the PhD before our son arrived, but it didn’t work out that way!” she laughs.
Having completed a BA in Anthropology at Lee University in her native Tennessee, and a Masters in Social Anthropology at UCL, Erin spent four years teaching at a community college in Wyoming, before deciding to return to the UK and embark on a doctorate.
Erin’s previous research had involved working with rural Pentecostal churches in Appalachia, with the highly controversial but longstanding practice of handling venomous snakes during worship. This informed her determination to break down barriers of fear and prejudice through the understanding of difference.
“People care deeply about things, and the actions they often take in relation to the things they care about can be easily misconstrued,” she says. “There are so often strong public and political narratives about groups of people, and I’m interested in getting beyond that to uncover what informs people’s decision making when it comes to the things they care most about.”
This led to the focus of Erin’s PhD, exploring the role of hope in the actions and decisions of people navigating the European asylum system on a small Greek island, where she lived for a year and a half.
“The local population was only 8,000, and there were up to 9,000 asylum seekers waiting to be processed there, so it was a socially tense, pressure-cooker environment. I was looking at how hope factored into people’s decision-making, but had to be very careful not to bring in my own biases and assumptions, that hope is always a positive. Hope tends to come up when there’s uncertainty, or when we can’t control the timing of things. People weren’t talking about hope as a shiny, happy thing, but were employing it continually to guide their actions.”
Returning to Darwin, Erin got married and had two children while completing her PhD. The family has now moved back to Appalachia, where she will take up a role as an Assistant Professor at Western Carolina University.
“It’s a beautiful campus in the mountains about an hour’s drive from Asheville. I love teaching anthropology in rural settings and having conversations with students about places and worldviews they might not have encountered but are eager to learn about.”
Erin will graduate on Saturday, 3rd May with a PhD in Social Anthropology.
