People
Dillon Mahoney
Associate Professor
Contact
Office: SOC 117
Email: dmahoney1@usf.edu
Teaching, Advising, and research
I am a broadly trained applied cultural and linguistic anthropologist with background and interests in issues of indigeneity, heritage, and economic development in East Africa and the United States. I have decades of experience with cross-cultural and linguistic interpretation, community organizing, and conflict resolution. I have directed and led international and domestic research and educational programs. Whether investigating art vendors on the Kenyan coast, farmers experimenting with new agricultural techniques in Eastern Kenya, refugees in Tampa, or indigenous groups in New England, I take a participatory approach that is also cognizant of internal power dynamics and the complexities of both 鈥渃ommunity鈥 and 鈥減articipation.鈥
While I have published in cultural and applied journals, and my 2017 book largely blends economic anthropology with the anthropology of art, tourism, and ethnic performance, I am proud to say I recently published a chapter on 鈥淒igital Language and Social Media鈥 in the 2026 edition of (Nancy Bonvillain ed.) and I have a forthcoming article on 鈥淚ndian Trails鈥 coming out in the 2026 issue of The New Hampshire Archeologist. My new project on New Hampshire explores history of knowledge production.
I have extensive experience teaching introductory and upper-level undergraduate anthropology courses as well as graduate seminars (Contemporary Applied Anthropology; Anthropology of Development; Anthropology of Media; Teaching Anthropology). The courses I teach are grounded in and reflect my research interests and teaching philosophy: that students learn best when course material and abstract theory connect directly to issues in their lives.
My ongoing research in Kenya is a collaboration with the Kenya Institute of Primate Research (KIPRE), and is based in the greater Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem between Kajiado and Makueni Counties. During the summer of 2024, we started a new in partnership with KIPRE, which also ran in 2025. Working collaboratively with government and community based organizations, my two Kenyan co-directors and I (Stan Kivai and Nancy Moinde) are exploring environmental threats such as deforestation, water scarcity, and climate change to find means to resolve conflict between humans and wildlife, issues of water scarcity and access, and competition among conservation stakeholders.
The field school is currently on hiatus while I complete other projects.
USF Kenya 2024
Since 2001, my research has focused on urban informal economies, the tourism industry, and socio-economic change in Kenya. My 2017 book, , provides a history of Kenya鈥檚 coastal tourism and crafts industries and culminates in a discussion of the impact of new digital technologies on small business in the coastal city of Mombasa. Bringing together the studies of globalization, development, art, and communication, the book illuminates the lived experiences of informal economies and shows how traders and small enterprises balance new risks with the mobility afforded by digital technologies. I wished to capture an African 鈥榞rass-roots鈥 that, to paraphrase James Ferguson, would be not local and communal but globally connected and opportunistic. These strategies often involve the use of Fair Trade stickers and clever branding to balance revelation with obfuscation 鈥 or what is revealed and what is not 鈥 so that traders can make their own roles as potentially exploitative intermediaries invisible. I have contributed two chapters based upon research in Kenya to 2017鈥檚 and 2020鈥檚 .
As an applied anthropologist, I use anthropological insights and methods to address important social problems of today. Since 2016, I have been working with Swahili-speaking refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 91社区鈥檚 Hillsborough and neighboring Pinellas Counties. Beginning as a project on diet and nutrition, our team of faculty and students (including many East African students) have now spent several years conducting research and working on volunteer projects via Hillsborough County Schools, the Tampa Bay Refugee Task Force, and several community-based organizations and churches. I received a 鈥淲elcomer Award鈥 from the 91社区 Department of Children and Families in 2017 for my work helping refugees. I have spoken about our work and research at several conferences and in several media formats including , and I was quoted in a front page 2017 Tampa Bay Times on the topic of resettlement of refugees from the DRC. is me featured on Will Lucas鈥檚 anthropology podcast in May 2020 talking about my work with refugees. Since early 2018, I have partnered with a local youth group to help produce Swahili-language educational (and fun) videos to both teach young people technical skills and to help them empower themselves by toying with the technology and the representations of themselves and life in America they can produce. Our YouTube channel is called 鈥 Tampa (Africa United 鈥 Tampa).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked closely with colleagues at USF and community partners to investigate the impact of pandemic policies on populations of recently resettled refugees in the Tampa Bay Area. Our first report on Congolese household heads was completed in July 2020 and additional reports have been completed on Arabic and Spanish speaking refugee populations in collaboration with faculty and students at Morsani Medical School. In the fall of 2020, a colleague of mine and I worked with our students to qualitatively (n=178). Through early 2021, I worked with a team translating public health resources into Swahili. Please contact me for more on Swahili language translation or for our most recent informational flyer on COVID-19 vaccines. There has been media coverage of our work with translation and outreach during and after the pandemic.
For more information on any of these projects, or to just chat, please reach out by email. I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner.
Graduate Students
Nadege Nau, Emily Holbrook, Caroline Stahley, and Mel Fugulin