Dawn Rivers, Ph.D.
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
2022 Ph.D., Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC; Committee Chair: Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld, Ph.D.
2018 M.A., Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
2014 B.A., Anthropology and Economics, summa cum laude, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY
APPOINTMENTS AND EMPLOYMENT
May 2022-present Consultant – Self-Employed
Conducts ethnographic research and data analysis covering organizational and workforce anthropology. Services offered include: organizational needs assessments, workforce engagement consulting, community outreach and facilitation.
Aug-Dec 2025 Visiting Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, NC
Taught undergraduate sociocultural anthropology course as needed by the department.
Sept 2022-May 2023 SME/Business Anthropologist, Relations Research LLC (Remote)
Conducted ethnographic research and data analysis covering organizational and workforce anthropology for clients of business consulting startup. Conducted management and supervisory training to enhance workforce engagement and productivity. Developed proprietary content for use in client onboarding.
PUBLICATIONS
Peer Reviewed Articles
June 2026 “Involuntary Self-Employment: Viable Ventures, Enduring Dissatisfaction.” Narodna umjetnost (Croatian Journal of Ethnology and Folklore Research) (63:1), 105-120.
June 2023 “The Value of Values: Sufficiency among single-person businesses in the U.S.” Economic Anthropology, Special Issue: Value and Change, Value in Crisis, (10:2), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12289
Fall 2023 “Meat and Three: Business Ownership as an Alternative Form of Work” Anthropology of Work Review (44:1), 5-14.https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.12246
Book Chapters
2027 “Research Design and Methods in Economic Anthropology.” Sandip Sinharay, ed., Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, 2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 571–573. US: Academic Press. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-26629-4.00283-5. , Leeds, UK: Elsevier Ltd.
2024 “Doing Business in a Pandemic: Resilience and Flexibility among U.S. Nonemployer Businesses.” Health, Money, Commerce, and Wealth: Anthropological Perspectives. Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 43, Donald Wood and Raja Swamy, eds., Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Ltd.
Book Reviews
September 2024 Review of Sarah Damaske, The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021, commissioned by the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for Volume 30, Number 3.
Podcasts
1st quarter 2024 Mergers & Acquisitions, Society for Economic Anthropology
Hosted of a podcast series on Work: livelihoods, work as part of life, and perspectives on work. I talked to Christine Jeske about connections between work and “the good life,” and comparisons between the United States and South Africa around questions of race and work. I discussed the different perspectives of the labor economist versus the labor anthropologist with labor economist Carlena Ficano. Finally, Sarah Besky and I had a conversation about work, intersections of colonialism and market reforms, and meanings of work.
PRESENTATIONS
Papers
November 2021 Panelist, “Creating Alternative Forms of Work” Roundtable, Truth and Responsibility: 2021 American Anthropological Association Conference, Baltimore, MD
March 2019 “Self-Employment Across Cultures: Escape from Neoliberal Labor Markets,” Engaging Change in Turbulent Times: 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, Portland, OR
March 2013 “Behavioral Responses to Tax Incentives Among Small Business Taxpayers: An Analysis of Sole Proprietor Capital Spending, 2000–2010,” 40th Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association, Issues in Political Economy, Undergraduate Best Paper Award, Boston, MA
Posters
April 2026 “Earningscape: the relationship between person and place that shapes individual earning potential,” The Anthropology of Dwelling: 46th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology, Fort Collins, CO.
March 2021 Short video: “The Layered Essence of Place in Self-Employment,” Landscapes of Value/Economies of Place: 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology, Virtual Conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0MydrKoFE
March 2019 “Self-Employment, Self-Valuation: A Comparative Glimpse of Self-Employment in North Carolina and Northern Spain,” Wealth in People: 2019 Annual Conference of the Society for Economic Anthropology, Orlando, FL
August 2017 “Entrepreneurial Beginnings: Self-Employment in the Post-Industrial West,” Expanding Understanding of Business Creation: Princeton Kauffman Conference, Princeton, NJ, August 1-3, 2017
INVITED TALKS
September 2022 “How Self-Employed People Use Capitalism for Non-Capitalist Ends,” invited by Dr. Ipshita Ghosh, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
October 2019 “Self-Employment and Sufficiency in Mature Capitalist Economies,” invited by Dr. Ken Erickson, Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina.
GRADUATE TEACHING EXPERIENCE
August 2016 – 2021 Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Courses:
Fall 2016 Anthropology 101: General Anthropology (TA)
Spring 2017 Anthropology 121: Ancient Cities of the New World (TA)
Fall 2017 Anthropology 280: Anthropology of War and Peace (TA)
Spring 2018 Anthropology 101: General Anthropology (TA)
Fall 2018 Anthropology 101: General Anthropology (TA)
Spring 2019 Interdisciplinary Studies 190: Death and Dying (TA)
Fall 2019 Interdisciplinary Studies 190: Death and Dying (TA)
Spring 2020 Anthropology 102: Cultural Anthropology (Lead TA)
Spring 2021 Anthropology 320: Anthropology of Development (Online), Graduate Teaching Fellow [Instructor of Record]
Summer 2021 Anthropology 102: Cultural Anthropology (Online), Graduate Teaching Fellow [Instructor of Record]
Fall 2025 Anthropology 102: Cultural Anthropology [Instructor of Record]
2018-2020 Graduate Teaching Consultant – responsible for training department first year graduate students as Teaching Assistants, and serving as mentor to first year TAs.
Fall 2018, Spring 2019 Graduate Research Consultant – responsible for assisting faculty by guiding students through assigned research projects; helped students to learn ethnographic research methodologies and to locate reputable scholarly sources.
GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS
2021 American Dissertation Completion Fellowship, American Association of University Women, $20,000
2021 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Graduate School, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, $14,000
2020 Off-Campus Dissertation Research Fellowship, Graduate School, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, $10,000
2018 Rhoda Halperin Memorial Fund Travel Award for Pre-dissertation Research, Society of Economic Anthropology, $2,500
SERVICE
Remote Reviewer, European Research Council, 2025 Call for Grant Proposals
Website Manager, Society for Economic Anthropology, 2017 – 2026
Member, Board of Directors, Society for Economic Anthropology, 2022-2025