Tammy Roberts

I was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1975. Coming from a working class family I attended a local state university (Millersville University) from 1993 until 1997. I graduated with a BA in Anthropology, an option (or focus) in archaeology and a dual minor in history and international studies. My original research interests were in Near East archaeology, specifically in Turkey and in Jordan. However, in my last year at Millersville I changed my focus from archaeology to cultural anthropology and wrote a senior undergraduate thesis on a web based organization of "Twin Peaks" fans (yes, that weird David Lynch and Mark Frost television series in the early 1990s... it was fascinating research!).

I applied to AU, as well as some other institutions, in 1997. I was accepted into the AU Anthropology, Ph.D. program for the fall semester 1998. My cultural area interest was the Middle East (a continued interest from my days as an archaeologist). For the first three years of my Ph.D. I focused all of my research and coursework on Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Palestine. I began work on my dissertation proposal in the fall of 2000. The topic of the dissertation was Palestinian children's political activism in West Bank refugee camps. Unfortunately, halfway through the planning stages of the research, Sharon was voted in as the Israeli Prime Minister, and I made the personal decision to not continue (at this time) with research in the West Bank (primarily for personal safety reasons).

After this very difficult decision was made I decided to return to a previous interest in conspiracy theory and militia organizations in the United States. While at Millersville University, I conducted extensive research on the history of conspiracy theories in the United States for my undergraduate thesis on Twin Peaks fans. I had also done limited research on the subject while at AU (one paper on the Oklahoma City Bombing and another on abortion clinic bombers). Therefore, the decision to conduct research on militia organizations in the US seemed logical.
I am currently working on my dissertation proposal which will attempt to answer some of the following questions. As with all things, the proposal is a process ... what is written below will most definitely change somewhat as my work continues:

• In what way is involvement in current militia organizations linked to past militia activity in the US (from the colonial period to the present)?
• Is the current manifestation of militia activity really a new phenomenon?
• Is it a "new social movement"?
• In light of the previous question, how do militia members view their involvement in militia organizations? Is involvement a political act? A type of "radical" citizenship?
• Why do militia members choose to devote their free time to preparing a trained citizen militia? For what purposes?
• And finally . . . How do the activities of citizens' militias (or constitutional militias) fit into current cultural and structural ideologies and regulations about civilian militarization in the United States? How are conflicts between individual actions/motivations and structural (cultural and governmental) actions/motivations negotiated on a day to day basis?