M. Ruth Dike is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville. She was born and raised in Memphis, TN. Ruth holds a Bachelor of Arts in Honors Anthropology from the University of Tennessee Knoxville, a Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy from Boston University and a PhD from the University of Kentucky. Funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant, her dissertation explored how Moroccan family life is changing, with regards to the gendered negotiations of reproductive and paid labor and the cultural meaning and lived experience of contemporary middle-class identities. Reproductive labor is broadly defined as unpaid and paid labor associated with care giving and domestic roles including but not limited to cleaning, cooking, and child care. While the majority of existing research on reproductive labor uses quantitative methods which pre-formulates participants’ responses, this project employs a fine-grained ethnographic approach to explore everyday practices in the household in order to uncover participants’ own reasons and strategies for negotiating reproductive labor in the way they do.

Anthropology

Gender/Women's Studies

Diaspora/Refugee Studies

Globalization

Maghreb Studies

Morocco

Reproductive Labor, Family, Labor & Identity, Food

Arabic (advanced)