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prof. ragland researcher of the year award + recent news 

Feb 15, 2023

Jared Ragland, from the series, Hellbender

Assistant Professor Jared Ragland has been selected as the 2022 USU Caine College of the Arts Faculty Researcher of the Year.  Nominations for the award are made by faculty from departments of Art + Design, Music, and Theatre Arts.

Also this week, The Conversation, a US/UK/Canadian outlet that publishes articles written by academic experts for the general public, has shared a story based on Prof. Ragland’s longterm photo-ethnographic research.  “When he’s not on drugs, he’s a good person’ – one community’s story of meth use and domestic violence” can be read here.

The Conversation takes its finding from a recent article, “Sex, drugs, and coercive control: Gendered narratives of methamphetamine use, relationships, and violence,” co-authored by Ragland with collaborators Heith Copes, Fiona Brookman, and Blake Beaton and published by the journal, Criminology. The Criminology article marks the first time the journal has published a photo essay in its history, signaling a significant development for narrative-driven, qualitative, and visual methods in the discipline.  The most recent journal rankings from the Institute for Scientific Information identifies Criminology as the leading professional journal in the field of Criminology (first out of 27), 6th of 96 in the field of Sociology, and 29th of 101 in the field of Law.  

Additionally, the journal Conflict and Society has announced “Changing Narratives of Intimate Partner Violence: A Longitudinal Photo-Ethnography,” co-authored by Ragland with Heith Copes and Lindsay Leban, as the journal’s most-viewed article of 2022. Conflict and Society is a journal covering the technologies, fields, and categories related to Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Political Science and International Relations, and Sociology and Political Science. It is published by Berghahn Journals. Changing Narratives... was published as part of a special section theme, “The Longitudinal Ethnography of Violence.” In the article Ragland et al explore how women’s narratives of abuse change, including narratives of self as well as narratives of their abusers.

To learn more about Ragland’s collaborative photo-ethnographic work, visit his website


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