Sarah E. Vaughn

Sarah E. Vaughn is an associate professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley. Vaughn’s research agenda entails developing an ethnographic approach to and a critical social theory of climate adaptation. Over the past decade, she has conducted archival research and ethnographic fieldwork of experts and ordinary citizens implementing climate adaptation projects throughout the circum-Caribbean. She also recently published the book Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation (Duke University Press, 2022).

While at Radcliffe, Vaughn is working on the book manuscript project “Cultivating an Environmental Spirit: Finance, Climate Change, and Ethics in Bermuda.” Offering a double gaze on finance, the book examines how computational work is materially constituted as well as the role of climate change in reconstituting corporate models of ethics across the subsectors of Bermuda’s reinsurance industry. Challenging the widespread view that financial institutions are primarily organized around the law and markets, “Cultivating an Environmental Spirit” charts the acts of environmental image making and assemblages devoted to climate change.

Vaugn received her BA from Cornell University, majoring as a Robert S. Harrison College Scholar with a focus in anthropology, sociology, and inequality studies (summa cum laude) and earned a PhD from the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University. Her work has appeared in numerous forums, including Comparative Studies in Society and History, Critical Inquiry, Cultural Anthropology, the Massachusetts Review, Orion Magazine, and Public Culture. Vaughn’s book Engineering Vulnerability was awarded the American Anthropological Association’s 2022 Julian Steward Book Award.