Research Interests

Jacqueline Wagner earned her PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis in May 2024, and she also holds a Master of Public Health (MPH). Her research at an official refugee and asylum seeker reception center run by an international NGO in Madrid, Spain examines how the government reception program works toward the autonomy and integration of participants in the local community. In this research, she is particularly interested in the interactions and negotiations between humanitarian workers and refugees throughout this process. This project received support from the National Science Foundation. In the future, she plans to pursue two new research projects, one on the use of technology-mediated journalism by refugees in Europe, and the second on the provision of humanitarian aid to refugees and migrants within the post-conflict, divided society of Northern Ireland. Previous research conducted in Northern Ireland and the U.S. during her undergraduate and MPH studies focused on post-conflict mental health, the psychology of social division, and refugee trauma. Her research interests lie at the intersection of migration and refugee studies, humanitarian studies, and political anthropology. She has taught courses on ethnographic methods, migration, refugees, medicine, global health, and medical anthropology.

Publications

Forthcoming. Wagner, J. “Managing Expectations and Bringing Refugees ‘Down to Earth’ at a Madrid NGO.” Anthropological Quarterly.

Wagner, J. 2023. “Deserving Asylum and Becoming ‘Good’ Refugees in Madrid.” Medicine Anthropology Theory 10 (1): 1-10.

Wagner, J. 2016. “Assessing refugee trauma in the primary care setting.” Annals of Global Health 82 (3): 568. [Abstract].

Sethi, D, Mitis, F, Alink, L, Butchart, A, Wagner, J, & Stoltenborgh, M. 2013. “Chapter 2: Scale and consequences of the problem.” In D. Sethi, M Bellis, K Hughes, R Gilbert, F Mitis, & G Galea (Eds.), European report on preventing child maltreatment (pp. 8-33). Copenhagen, Denmark: WHO