Department of Sociology

Faculty and Staff

Kim Huisman, Assistant Professor
5728 Fernald Hall, Room 209
Orono, ME 04469-5728
(207) 581-2361

kim.huisman@umit.maine.edu

 

Ph.D. (2003) University of Southern California

Kim's areas of interest and teaching are:
Immigration, race and ethnicity, gender, and domestic violence.~ Kim currently teaches Introduction to Sociology; Social Inequality; Immigration, Women & Society; and Deviance & Social Control.~ Her research interests include immigration, gender, race and ethnicity.~ Her current research project, the Somali Narrative Project (SNP), established in August 2004, is a collaborative, interdisciplinary project that is driven by a commitment to engaged scholarship that enhances cultural and intercultural understanding.~ SNP includes four faculty members, several students, and Somali community members. The goal of SNP is to document the immigration experiences of Somalis in Maine and to use the narratives in a variety of ways to foster dialogue and understanding about religion, race, and immigration in Maine .  For example, SNP developed a reader’s theater script that combines existing texts and interviews with Somalis in Maine to tell the stories of Somali history, culture, and immigration.  The performance is organized chronologically around several themes (Colonial Somalia, Somali Civil War, Traditional Poetry, Diasporas:  Europe, Canada, U.S., and Maine), and is being performed in a variety of venues around the state.

Recent Publications
• Huisman, Kimberly & Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo.  2005.  "Dress matters:  Change and continuity in the dress practices of Bosnian Muslim refugee women."  Gender & Society 19 (1):  44-65
• Huisman, K., J. Martinez, & C. Wilson.  (June 2005).  Training police officers about domestic violence and racism:  Challenges and strategies.  Violence Against Women, 11 (6), 792-821.