Keith Brown

Associate Professor (Research)

Keith Brown

 

Contact Information

Keith_Brown@brown.edu

(401) 863-9604

Watson Institute
Brown University, Box 1970
Providence, RI 02912-1970

 

Recent News

July 29, 2009 : Brown Critiques Democracy Building Efforts

The US government’s approach to promoting democracy in other countries is lacking two essential attributes: “local knowledge… of a sort that doesn’t make it up the aid-chain to Washington, and historical perspective,” according to Associate Professor Keith Brown. In a recent article published on openDemocracy.net, Brown describes what he judges to be the structural shortcomings of contemporary democracy-promotion initiatives in the Balkans. He also discusses related issues in a short video.

April 06, 2009 : Watson Faculty Sponsor Royce Undergraduate Fellowships

March 24, 2009 : Brown's Report on Democratization: 'We Still Don't Know How'

February 20, 2009 : Panel Debates Military Funding of Scholars as AAA Commission Meets at Brown

 

Areas of Interest: Social and cultural dimensions of political and economic processes; Macedonia and the Balkans – and the international and transnational linkages that run through the region; the evaluation of democracy promotion programs; identity politics in diasporic communities; and what the US military learned about culture from its experience in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Keith Brown is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in the study of twentieth-century Macedonia.

He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago and taught at Bowdoin College and the University of Wales before joining the Watson Institute. He also spent 1999-2000 as a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, and 2005-6 as a visiting fellow at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute.

His research into how different communities construct history in Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria led to his book The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, as well as a number of articles on the culture, history, and politics of Macedonia. He is also the editor of Transacting Transition: The Micropolitics of Democracy Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia, which came out of ongoing research on the politics of US democracy promotion programs. His other projects focus on identity politics in diasporic communities, and how the US military thinks about culture.
 
Click here for his Brown University research profile.

Related Links:
Muabet: Local Dimensions of Democracy-Building in Southeast Europe

 

View select publications by Keith Brown