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Faculty

​E. Summerson Carr, Ph.D.

- Biography
- Publications

​Biography

E. Summerson Carr is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Service Administration. She is also an Associate Faculty member in the Department of Anthropology and at the Center for Gender Studies.  Professor Carr's current research focuses on how formal and folk theories of language are operationalized in social work interventions, particularly interventions aimed at drug use and users.  Her other research interests include cultural and clinical theories of addiction, the political dimensions of therapeutic practices, and both everyday and formal modes of political communication -- especially in relation to gender, race and sexuality.  Carr's work to date is dedicated to elucidating -- through ethnographic research and writing -- the cultural significance and cultivation of social work expertise, especially in the fields of substance abuse and housing/homeless services.

Professor Carr is currently completing a book based on over three years of ethnographic research at a drug treatment program for homeless women in the Midwestern U.S.  Entitled Scripting Addiction: The Politics of Therapeutic Talk and American Sobriety, the book explores how cultural ideas about addiction, language, and personhood are put into practice by counselors, case managers, and clients.

Professor Carr's interest in pursuing the anthropological study of contemporary American social work developed largely from her experience as a community-based and macro-level social worker.  She was a client organizer in a drug treatment institution, a program evaluator of a homeless services collaborative, and served as a coordinator of a participatory action research project with Hmong women in Detroit.

At SSA, Professor Carr teaches a research class focused on ethnographic methods and an advanced HBSE course called Drugs: Culture and Context.  Carr also teaches cross-listed seminars, open to doctoral students at SSA and in Anthropology: Culture and Agency and Culture, Convention, & the Clinic.

Professor Carr received a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Social Work at the University of Michigan, where she also earned an M.S.W., an M.A. in Anthropology, and a Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies. Her dissertation research was supported by a three-year predoctoral training grant from the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH).

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​Publications
  • Carr, E.S. 2010. Scripting Addiction: The Politics of Therapeutic Talk and American Sobriety. Princeton University Press.
  • Carr, E.S. 2010. Enactments of Expertise. Annual Review of Anthropology 39.
  • Carr, E.S. 2010. Qualifying the Qualitative Social Work Interview: A Linguistic Anthropological Approach. Qualitative Social Work.
  • Carr, E.S. 2009. Anticipating and Inhabiting Institutional Identities. American Ethnologist 36 (2): 317-336.
  • Carr, E.S. 2006. "Secrets keep you sick": Metalinguistic labor in a drug treatment program for homeless women. Language in Society 35(5): 631-653.
  • Carr, E.S. 2004. "Accessing resources, transforming systems": Group work with poor and homeless people. In Handbook for social work with groups, eds. C. Garvin, L. Gutierrez & M. Galinksky, 655-687. Guilford Press.
  • Carr, E.S. 2003. Rethinking empowerment theory using a feminist lens: The importance of process. Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 18(1): 8-20.
  • Yoshihama, M., & Carr, E.S. 2002. "Community Participation Reconsidered: Feminist Participatory Action Research with Hmong Women." Journal of Community Practice, 10(4), 85-104.
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