Iona College Media and Strategic Communication Assistant Professor Nadine Barnett Cosby, has been named a 2020 Fulbright Scholar in the Africa Regional Research Program, which will allow her to explore the expectations and realities of mission trips to Africa, specifically working in Zambia, where she has led two Iona mission trips.
“I started to notice there was a disparity in what the groups would think they were going to do versus what the host communities and the people in the communities expected or thought of mission trips,” she said.
As part of her research, Fulbright will fund multiple trips to Zambia so that Barnett Cosby can interview people serving on mission trips, as well as those hosting the trips. She will also use the time to train people in host communities on how to conduct interviews and document the feedback, so that her work can continue through a different lens while she is not physically in the field.
She will have two years to conduct her research and compile the findings, which could be published as a book and/or in various journal articles. Given her experience in film, she also plans to document the experience visually, perhaps to produce a documentary.
Prior to joining Iona in New Rochelle as an adjunct in 2011 and full time in 2013, Barnett Cosby had an extensive career in media as a writer, producer and director, heavily rooted in the exploration of racial, cultural and gender representation.
