My research probes how culture and industry shape entangled human-animal lives, social roles and inequalities, and ethical contestations in middle America.

I primarily investigate these issues in the world of Thoroughbred horse racing in central Kentucky, where I was born and raised, and where I conducted long-term ethnographic research funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and Washington University in St. Louis.

My writing has appeared in Anthropological Quarterly, Anthropology and Humanism, and Zoo Biology. From 2020-2022, I was a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis, where I taught a wide array of anthropology courses bridging global health and medicine, environmental and animal studies, sports, and science and technology studies.

I earned degrees from Washington University in St. Louis (PhD, AM), the University of Chicago (AM), and Transylvania University (BA). Along the way, I taught in the Kingdom of Bhutan, worked in refugee and immigration services, and cooked in a collective popup waffle restaurant.

I now live and garden with my family in central Kentucky and work for Pearson, the world’s leading learning company.

email
s.carolynbarnes [at] gmail [dot] com