Bio

Doering-White is an anthropologist and social work scholar whose research focuses on the everyday politics of humanitarian aid and human service work in forced displacement contexts. His ethnographic work has focused on grassroots shelters that assist Central Americans migrating through Mexico. As part of this work, Doering-White served as co-producer for Border South, a feature documentary film directed by Raul Paz Pastrana that premiered to national and international audiences in June 2019. Ongoing research projects examine cross-border systems of care for unaccompanied minors and how migrants and aid workers across Mexico are experiencing, anticipating, and responding to climate-related displacement.

Doering-White’s research and scholarship has received funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung Foundation, the Kiphart Center for Global Health and Social Development, and Fulbright. He has published in outlets across anthropology, social work, and migration studies, including Social Service Review, Qualitative Social Work, the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Doering-White joined the faculty of the College of Social Work and the Department of Anthropology, where he is jointly appointed, in 2019. He is a faculty associate at the University of South Carolina’s Walker Institute of International and Areas Studies. He co-directs the Migration Scholars Working Group on campus and serves on the executive leadership team for Scholars Across Anthropology and Social Work.

Doering-White is a graduate of the Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where he also earned his MSW. He received a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Human Development and Social Relations from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind.

Representative Publications

Doering-White, J. (2021). ¡Qué mamada! (What a joke!): Humor, hostility, and hospitality along the Central American Migrant Trail. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.12546