Research Discipline/Bio
I am a doctoral candidate in Anthropology and Education. My research interests include adult education, community organizing and collective political action, urbanism and urban infrastructure, and Latin American immigration to the United States. My dissertation work considers community organizing and advocacy efforts around traffic safety issues within participatory planning initiatives. Through ethnographic engagement, this project considers how a variety of stakeholders, especially Latinx immigrants, participate in planning initiatives and community organizing and how the knowledge they produce for and through these efforts is legitimated, transformed, contested, and reinscribed as they attempt to improve traffic safety. Prior to entering doctoral study, I was an educator, organizer, and nonprofit leader working across southern and central New Jersey.
Educational Background
Master of Science in Education, Adult Education, Indiana University, May 2019.
Bachelor of Arts in Applied Linguistics, Iowa State University, Dec 2006
Honors/Awards
Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, 2024-2025; Education Policy Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2024-2025; National Association of Student Anthropologists Carrie Hunter-Tate Award, 2023; Teachers College Dean’s Grant for Student Research, 2023; American Anthropologist Contributing Editors Program, 2021-2023; Anthropology Research Fund in Honor of Lambros Comitas, 2021, 2022; Teachers College Doctoral Fellowship, 2021-2022.
Publications/Exhibitions
Callejas, Linda, Jenna Barchas-Lichtenstein, Aaron Su, and Elena Peeples. 2024. “Publics, Anthropologies, and Public Anthropologies.” American Anthropologist. 126, no. 1: 149-152. https://doi-org.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/10.1111/aman.13936
Peeples, Elena. 2021. “People, Policy, and Praxis: Freirean Pedagogy and Local-Level Policy Implementation.” Current Issues in Comparative Education 23, no. 2: 80-94. https://doi.org/10.7916/r4q8-qg91
Last Updated: Oct 14, 2024