Steven Thomson (Ph.D., Boston University, 2006) is a practicing political anthropologist. He is employed by the Office of the Washington State Auditor within the Center for Government Innovation as Lean Specialist. He works with local governments across the state to help them provide high quality services, efficiently and effectively. His practice is informed by research interests in the formation and governance of multiethnic local communities, the intersection of national and local political structures, the built environment, religious conversion, and disaster preparedness, and community development. He has conducted nearly two years of field research in The Gambia and Senegal. He has taught at Boston University, the University of Wyoming and Pacific Lutheran University. At Portland State, he contributes to the community of practicing anthropologist and teaches occasionally on Careers in Local Government and on methods for anthropological practice.
Selected Works:
- Thomson, Steven. To Condone or To Contest?: Ethnic Identity and Religious Architecture in The Gambia. (2014) In Sacred Precincts: Non-Muslim Religious Sites in Islamic Territories, Mohammad Gharipour, editor. Pp. 28-42. Boston: Brill.
- Thomson, Steven. Christianity, Islam, and ‘The Religion of Pouring:’ Non-linear Conversion in a Gambia / Casamance Borderland. (2012) Journal of Religion in Africa. 42 (3): 240-276.
- Thomson, Steven. Developing a Multiethnic Ethos: How Colonial Legacies, National Policies, and Local Histories Converged in a Charter for an Ethnically Diverse Gambian Community. (2012) Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 12 (2): 286-308. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9469.2012.01171.x
- Thomson, Steven. Revisiting 'Mandingization’ in Coastal Gambia and Casamance (Senegal): Four Approaches to Ethnic Change. (2011) African Studies Review 45 (2): 95-121.
Courses Taught: