Kari Smalkoski, Doctoral Dissertation Fellow in the Department of Family Social Science, recently presented a paper from her dissertation study, “Performing Masculinities: The Impact of Cultural Practices, Violence, and (de)segregation on Hmong Immigrant Male Youth” at the American Men’s Studies Association’s 22nd Annual Conference in Tacoma, Washington.

Ty Kawika Tengan, anthropologist at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and keynote speaker at the conference, writes: “Kari’s presentation on Hmong “Performing Masculinities” represented an important intervention at the AMSA, which by and large featured talks on white (mainly) and African American (secondarily) masculinities. Theoretically and methodologically rich, her talk led conferees to not only “consider culture” (as the title of the conference went) but also to imagine new ways of researching and narrating the intersections of masculinity, race, and violence in the U.S. through the lens of Asian American diasporic and transnational formations.”