Ashley Schubert is a lecturer in anthropology at the University of New Hampshire and is currently finishing her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Ashley’s archaeological research focuses on the role that cultural interaction plays in initiating and constraining social change, and how we can explore that phenomenon in the past and present through the material remains left behind. For her dissertation, she directed a multi-phase research program in the Appalachian Summit of North Carolina to explore how pre-Columbian mountain communities adopted, integrated, and modified Mississippian practices during the late Pisgah period (ca. AD 1200-1600). Utilizing geophysical remote sensing, targeted excavations and variety of laboratory analyses, this research considered the ways prehistoric Native American social relationships and interactions generated diverse local communities and identities. She was also a team member with the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP). The UMP is a multi-year anthropological study of clandestine movement of individuals between Mexico and the United States. Her particular focus was on the material record of the U.S. Border Patrol and the inequality of power and sovereignty affecting the experiences of border crossers.
