Felicia “Faye” McMahon, associate research professor in the Department of Anthropology in The College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, participated in “I Am Unspoken,” an annual multifaceted forum that gives voice to human rights violations around the globe and offers practical solutions to shape a better tomorrow. The three-day program, which combined film, art, music and academic panels, was held Oct. 13-15 in Utica.
McMahon teaches in the Renée Crown University Honors Program at SU where her undergraduate students are actively engaged in fieldwork with refugee artists in the city of Syracuse. In her presentation she stressed “the importance of cultural democracy to provide public opportunities for all to be cultural citizens, with equal opportunities for each to exercise full membership in the civic whole and to retain the culturally bonded self.”
For more than a decade, McMahon has been actively engaged in fieldwork and advocacy with uprooted people in Syracuse. A nationally recognized public sector folklorist, McMahon takes a community-assets approach in helping newcomers regain and re-establish meaningful places in the world by finding public spaces that will include new immigrants and refugees in community building initiatives.
McMahon, a former Fulbright Scholar, holds a Ph.D. in folklore and folk arts from the University of Pennsylvania.
