Office: PAS 2013
Email: nhayes@uwaterloo.ca
Pronouns: She/Her
Background
Nic Hayes is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Waterloo and a Subject Matter Expert and Professor at Conestoga Social innovation Lab. She obtained her PhD in Anthropology with a concentration in Socio-cultural Anthropology (2011). Her research and teaching interests include: sub-Saharan Africa, medical anthropology, gender and sexuality, inequality, ethnohistory, postcolonialism, environmental anthropology, kinship studies, and human rights.
Nic Hayes’ early research examined the precarious entanglement of Malawian intimate behaviour with emotional needs and material priorities in the context of the AIDS epidemic. This research was based on 18 months of participant observation fieldwork, interviews, and archival research. Struck by parallels between the AIDS epidemic in southern Africa, and the global COVID-19 pandemic, Nic Hayes is currently studying similarities in cross-cultural responses to epidemic disease, such as conspiracy theories, mistrust of government initiatives, and anti-vaxx sentiments, with an eye to informing policy on epidemic preparedness. Her recent development of a second field site in Canada has resulted in a three-part series of case studies on affordable housing in Waterloo Region.
- PhD Anthropology (Boston University)
- MA Anthropology (McMaster University)
- BA Anthropology (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
2025 - “Union Sustainable Development Co-operative: Affordable Housing in Waterloo Region.” Ivey Publishing. In press.
2025 - “Union Sustainable Development Co-operative, Part II: Preserving Affordable Rents in Waterloo Region.” Ivey Publishing. In press.
2025 - “Vancity Community Foundation: Financing and Affordable Housing.” Ivey Publishing. In press.
2016 - “Marriage is Perseverance’: Structural Violence, Culture, and AIDS in Malawi.” Anthropologica 58(1):95-105.
2015 - “Dying is Dying, That’s All’: Structural Violence, Cultural Projects and Malawian AIDS Proverbs.” African Journal of AIDS Research 14(3): 1-9.
2013 - “Human Rights Discourse, Gender, and HIV and AIDS in Southern Malawi.” Anthropologica 55(2):349-358.
Book Chapters
2016 - “Faith, Hope, and Charity: Barriers to Condom Use among Women and Girls in Southern Malawi.” In Missing the Mark? Women and the Millennium Development Goals in Africa and Oceania, edited by Naomi McPherson. Toronto: Demeter Press. Pp. 96-125.