After graduating from Arizona State University , Janet Benson joined the Peace Corps and served in Kenya for two years. She then entered Brandeis University for graduate study. Later she returned to the field, this time to southern India . She spent 14 months in a small community on her first visit and received her PhD in 1975. Other field trips to India and Sri Lanka followed until 1987, when she became interested in immigration to southwest Kansas . In 1988 she co-authored a proposal and joined a research team as part of the Ford Foundation's Changing Relations Project, living in Garden City, Kansas as a member of refugee households and conducting ethnographic research to understand how the community was adapting to newcomers. Her publications have focused on the effects of meatpacking on households and communities; current research interests include identity issues, immigration and public policy, and the second generation.
|
