Rhiannon Powers
  • PhD Job Candidate

Biography

Greetings! My name is Rhiannon Dawn Powers; I am currently a PhD Candidate at Texas A&M University and will be entering my fourth year this upcoming fall 2025 semester. My academic background consists of obtaining my M.A. in Sociology at Texas A&M University and my B.A. at the University of Texas at El Paso, graduating Cum Laude. In my PhD program, my primary interests lie in theory and culture, with a particular focus on Indigenous cultures. I am a descendant of the Navajo tribe, and I have found that there is a small amount of sociological research on the Indigenous area. Therefore, my objective is to focus on the issues of cultural identity among Indigenous people in the United States. My dissertation focuses on the loss of cultural identity of Indigenous tribes, by applying and recontextualizing the theories of Émile Durkheim, William James, Thorstein Veblen, David Riesman, Jean Baudrillard, Stjepan Mestrovic among others. In my academic achievements, I have received the Dr. Dionel E. Avilés and Dr. James E. Johnson Fellowship for the past three years and received the Graduate Scholarship from the Navajo Nation. In terms of publication, I am currently working towards publishing my findings on the loss of cultural identity among the Navajo tribe, and I plan to continue publishing more of my research in the future.

Research Interests

  • Theory
  • Culture
  • Indigenous Culture
  • Deviance