Caroline Melly is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research examines how transnational processes and linkages are transforming urban spaces and livelihoods in contemporary Africa. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, in 2008 and her BA in Anthropology and Studio Arts from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (Law and Social Science and Cultural Anthropology programs) and by the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program.
Professor Melly's current manuscript, tentatively titled "Anticipating Returns: Investment, Migration, and Urban Futures in Dakar, Senegal," considers the complex and contradictory expectations, regulations, and logics that govern neoliberal development in Dakar, Senegal. More specifically, she examines how increasingly restricted international migration policies (particularly in Europe and the United States) collide with open market policies in Senegal to produce particular ideas about economic participation and future possibility in urban Dakar. This manuscript highlights the various sorts of economic and social "returns"— a term she uses to refer to a physical homecoming of bodies through return migration, the profit or loss made on an investment, a response or rejoinder, or something given back—that shape conceptions of development and future possibility in contemporary Dakar. Professor Melly pays particular attention to the ways that remitting migrants are reconceptualized as transnational entrepreneurs whose hard work and sacrifices will bring about alternative national futures. Her ethnographic research in this West African capital city involved an internship at the national investment promotion agency, which was looking to create a program for migrants to invest; "mobile" interviews with cab drivers navigating the city; and extensive work with return migrants, investors, and residents who considered themselves excluded from transnational networks.
Professor Melly is also interested in visual anthropology, legal studies, feminist theory and methodology, and the anthropology of money and capital. Her future research plans include an ethnographic exploration of West African artists' efforts to bring visibility to debates about human rights, economic development, and international law as they pertain to the migration "crisis" in West Africa. She is also interested in examining the link between notions of an "African Renaissance" and technological innovation and global connectivity, and in tracking the proposed construction of a new Senegalese capital city modeled on the emirate of Dubai.
At Smith, Professor Melly teaches courses on transnationalism and globalization, visual anthropology, urban anthropology, and African studies
