Ivy Ken

In collaboration with Professor K. Sebastian León (GW alum, MA 2013), Professor Ken received a grant from the National Science Foundation in 2024 to study rural land use and immigration strategies in the meatpacking industry.  In their work, Ken and León focus on the practices of coercion, confinement, and racialization that render the industry's workforce disposable.  

Professor Ken also studies "The Missing Memphis School."  The Memphis School comprises a group of sociologists from diverse racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds who wrote and worked together at the Center for Research on Women in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1980s.  These scholars obtained funding to study race, class, and gender, they mentored each other and another generation of scholars, and they produced discipline- and field-shaping scholarship.  Their work, which predated and shaped Kimberlé Crenshaw’s influential law articles on intersectionality, centered the structural locations of Black women in education and work.  Through an examination of their scholarly articles, grant proposals, working paper series, and personal writings, Professor Ken, along with co-author Professor Allison Suppan Helmuth (GW alum, MA 2014), highlights the unique qualities and legacy of the Memphis School’s collaborative and novel approach to intersectionality.

National Science Foundation, 2024.  "Food Industry in Rural Communities: Understanding Place and Labor-Related Dynamics and Corporate Strategies."  Ivy Ken and Kenneth Sebastian León.  2024.  Collaborative Research co-funded by the Sociology Program and the Science of Organizations Program.

Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, 2022.  American Sociological Association, Race, Gender, Class Section.  Ivy Ken and Allison Suppan Helmuth.  2021.  “Not Additive, Not Defined:  Mutual Constitution in Feminist Intersectional Studies.”  Feminist Theory 22:4:575-604; DOI:  10.1177/1464700120987393

Fulbright Scholar Award, 2015.  “School Food from Farms in Chile and the United States.”  Fulbright Commission, U.S. Core Scholars Program, for study in Chile, Universidad Austral de Chile.

Article of the Year Award, 2007.  Sociological Spectrum, Mid-South Sociological Association.  Ivy Kennelly.  2007.  “Time Off as Economic Capital: Thwarting the Segregated Occupational Field.” Sociological Spectrum 27:1-23; DOI:  10.1080/02732170601120639

Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Article Award, 2001.  American Sociological Association, Race, Gender, Class Section.  Ivy Kennelly.  1999.  “ ‘That Single Mother Element’: How White Employers Typify Black Women.”  Gender & Society 13:2:168-192; DOI:  10.1177/089124399013002002

“Caregivers, We See You.”  George Washington University Faculty Association (GWUFA) blog.  Posted 15 July 2020.  Reposted on Women In and Beyond the Global blog 18 July 2020.

“Disney Survey Demoralizes, Glosses Over Faculty Members’ Concerns.”  The GW Hatchet, Op-Ed.  Posted 15 November 2018.

"From Voiceless to Valuable." GW Food Institute commentary.  Posted 22 May 2017.

"Good Food Purchasing Programs." GW Food Institute commentary. Posted 24 January 2017.

"Cultivating Better Urban Food Systems," at the 2015 Food Tank Summit, Washington DC.

“Cheap Food and Women’s Work.” With Benjamín Elizalde. Gender & Society blog. Posted 10 March 2016.

“White Fear of Black Success.” Women In and Beyond the Global blog. Posted 19 June 2016.

“In Chile, Lunch Ladies Beaten and Detained.” Women In and Beyond the Global blog. Posted 16 October 2015.

“Keep Food Companies Out of WHO Policy Making!” Women In and Beyond the Global blog. Posted 4 June 2015.

“No Black Children Allowed.” Women In and Beyond the Global blog. Posted 7 May 2015.

Undergraduate Courses:
SOC 1000 - Sociology of Food (Dean's Seminar, Service-Learning)
SOC 1000 - Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender
SOC 1002 - The Sociological Imagination (GPAC Local/Civic Engagement & Critical Thinking)
SOC 2103 - Classical Sociological Theory (Writing in the Disciplines) 
SOC 2104 - Contemporary Sociological Theory (GPAC Critical Thinking)
SOC 2105 - Social Problems
SOC 2175 - Sociology of Sex and Gender
SOC 2181 - Food & Workers of the World
SOC 4195 - Senior Research Seminar (Writing in the Disciplines, GPAC Oral Communication)
HONR 2048 - School Food Policy

Graduate Courses:
SOC 6239 - Contemporary Sociological Theory
SOC/WGSS 6268 - Race, Gender, and Class
SOC 6271 - Gender and Society

PhD, Sociology, University of Georgia, 1999

MA, Sociology, University of Georgia, 1995

Certificate in Women's Studies, University of Georgia, 1995

BA, Sociology and Business, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, 1993