Austin Duncan, MPA

University of Arizona
Anthropology
Graduate - PhD Candidate
Diversity Fellow

I was born and raised in Seattle, WA. I am a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Arizona.  My research focuses on the interactions between disability, the community, and social policy. I am especially interested in the subject because I survived a severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in 2003, and currently serve on the advisory board of the Brain Injury Alliance of Arizona. For the fellowship, I will help advise a team at the University of Arizona that will conduct TBI outreach and awareness-raising, as well as a preliminary Needs Assessment for TBI-related services with Native communities. I will also keep a journal and notebook of critical reflections and autoethnographic observations on doing field research for my NSF-funded dissertation, “The Social Life of TBI,” for which I will be collecting data all of 2018.  I will present analyses, conclusions, and a general reflection on my experience in the hopes that it will help the many other researchers doing critical and engaged work related to their own bodily impairments.