Profile

Biography

Dr. Kenny is a cultural anthropologist interested in how people thrive under conditions of uncertainty, inequality, illness, and social change. Her research is eclectic and interdisciplinary, bringing feminist and decolonial anthropology into conversation with economic anthropology and ritual studies. She has published on kinship, poverty, beauty, education and rites of passage. Currently working on a longitudinal study of Ozarks families, Dr. Kenny's work is grounded in the conviction that scholarship should remain attentive to ordinary life: kitchens, bodies, gardens, friendships, stories, and the small acts through which people continually repair and remake their worlds.

A co-founder of the Center for Ozarks Poverty Research - https://www.missouristate.edu/SAG/copr.htm , in her free time, Dr. Kenny enjoys yoga and other somatic healing practices.

Details

Education

• PhD, Anthropology, 2005, University of Kentucky
• MS, Anthropology & Gender Studies, 1995, Wichita State University
• BS, Anthropology & Geology, 1991, James Madison University

Teaching

• ANT100 World Cultures
• ANT313 Volunteerism & Development in the Global South
• ANT395 History of Anthropological Theory

Professional experience

Promoted to full professor.

2025 _Women & Education: Global Lives in Focus_, Bloomsbury Press
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/women-and-education-9781440865497/

Research and professional interests

• Africa 
• Household economics 
• Gender and kinship 
• Diaspora and immigration 
• Intergenerational obligations
• Women's entrepreneurship 
• Women in higher education
• Ozarks Poverty Research

Awards and honors