The PERCS Outstanding Ethnography Award

This award recognizes the student who has conducted the most outstanding ethnographic research project at Elon University, judged according to the quality of both the process and product. The award is given by PERCS: The Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies.

Presented by Amy Allocco, Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, and Director of the Multifaith Scholars Program

Transcript of Commendations

Amy Allocco, Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, and Director of the Multifaith Scholars Program

My name is Amy Allocco. Today I am here to present the PERCS Outstanding Ethnography Award. This award recognizes the student who has conducted the most outstanding ethnographic research project at Elon University, judged according to the quality of both the process and product. The award is given by PERCS: The Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies.

This year our recipient is Kathryn Gerry:

  • Majors: International & Global Studies (Middle East concentration) and Political Science
  • Minors: Asian Studies, Interreligious Studies, and Middle East Studies

Building on ethnographic projects undertaken during a summer with Elon in New York and a semester of study abroad in North India, Kathryn traveled to South India last summer to spend an intensive five-week period living independently with a community in the coastal state of Kerala to examine the changes brought about by widespread worker migration to the Gulf. During the course of her demanding fieldwork, she conducted 55 (!) interviews with Muslims, Hindus, and Christians who are involved in migration, whether as migrants themselves or as family members of migrants. She has presented on her ethnographic research (which is grounded in a truly impressive literature review) at a selective regional Religious Studies conference and was accepted to present at two other conferences this Spring. Kathryn not only had her article accepted for publication in the Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa, she also was awarded their $500 Albert Clark Prize for the Best Undergraduate Paper. A recent inductee to Phi Beta Kappa, Kathryn is currently developing a second article focused on the gendered experiences of Gulf migration to submit to the Journal of Undergraduate Ethnography and yesterday Kathryn was notified that she was selected for a Fulbright research fellowship to Bahrain.

Congratulations, Kathryn!