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News and Views
Fall 1999 Volume 10, Issue 1
Spotlight on Sybil DioNe
I believe that as a child I was similtaneously made aware of my race and feminity by my grandmother's example. Not only did she refuse to accept her plight as a young Colored woman in the 1940s, she dilligently worked to liberate the minds of women through community programs, sorority functions, and her personal example of entrepreneurship, professionalism, and educational attainment. She preached that, "Anything the mind can percieve and truly believe, you can achieve."
I
am the living example of her truth. Escaping the reality of family violence
perpetrated by my father, I graduated high school early and was admitted
to UF as a Presidential honors scholar. However, seeking social, moral,
and academic support, I transferred to FAMU where I earned my B.S. in
Human Resource Management. From there I attended the Vanderbilt University
Law School where I earned my Juris Doctorate in 1992. In 1998 I
completed an M.A. in Anthropology at the University of Florida and this
past spring I finished my course work for a Ph D. Currently, I am preparing
for qualifying exams and doctoral research.
I position myself as an applied feminist anthropologist who is interested in the lived experience of race, gender inequality, and power. Overall, I am interested in investigating power relations as they pertain to gender inequality. This concern for the connection between social reality, gender, and race has provided the underlying basis for all of my research.
One of my first research projects involved working with impoverished African-American women in an attempt to build their business acumen through community development. This work became the basis for my master's thesis and was entitled, "Becoming a 'Native': Confronting Issues of Epistemology and Methodology in Emic Research". Subsequently, I investigated the position of women in Afro-Brazilian religion, which resulted in a paper and a speech presentation entitled, "Finding God in Brazil and Leaving Her There". Next, I focused on the lived experience of race and gender by exposing how these factors inform the creation of structural power. This work resulted in a paper and speech presentation entitled, "No Nubian Knots or Nappy Locks: Discussing the Politics of Hair Among African-American Women." Eventually, this paper was named the "Outstanding Graduate Student Paper" by Sigma XI and the "Outstanding Anthropology Paper" by the Florida Academy of Sciences in 1999. This paper has been selected for presentation at the 1999 American Anthropological Association meeting. In addition to examining the politics of hair, my dissertation research focuses on the structural underpinnings of gender inequality through an examination of police attitudes towards domestic violence in Belize, centering particularly on the feminist transformation of domestic violence into a human rights issue.
In 1995 I was awarded the UF Graduate Minority Fellowship, and in 1998 I received funding from FLAS to study Yoruba. Currently, I am a recipient of the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship and was recently granted travel support from the Association for Feminist Anthropology. This past summer I participated in the Zora Neale Hurston Ethnographic Field School and a National Science Foundation Research Design Camp. Ultimately, my goal is to take part in academic, cultural, and employment experiences which will enable me to research intimate violence cross-culturally.
Sybil is currently working on her Graduate Certification in Women's Studies.
