Sean M. Daley, PhD, MA

Sean M. Daley is an applied sociocultural anthropologist and ethnographer whose research lies primarily at the intersections of religion, spirituality, and health. Much of his previous work focused on contemporary American Indian health, wellness, and spirituality.

Sean has also worked with cattle ranching communities in southern Utah and northern Arizona. He collaborated with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ranching communities to document the changes in ranching and religious life with the implementation of federal laws and policies that restricted access to historically accessible public lands of cultural and religious significance. He also worked with rodeo roughstock riders (bull, bareback, and saddle bronc riders) in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Utah looking at injuries received while participating in rodeos.

Sean presently works in the areas of contemporary Roman Catholic healing, spiritual warfare, deliverance, and exorcism ministries. He also researches illnesses, sicknesses, and diseases that are of spiritual or supernatural origins in certain folk Catholic and syncretic Catholic belief systems, including Espiritismo, Santa Muerte, Santería, and Vodou.

More recently, Sean has begun to collaborate with parents, caregivers, hospitals, and community health organizations in Pennsylvania and Connecticut examining attitudes, concerns, and needs surrounding children with medical complexity (CMC), pediatric palliative care and hospice care, as well as pediatric death and dying.

Education

• PhD, Sociocultural Anthropology (minor in U.S. Federal Law), University of Connecticut, 2005 MA,
• MA, American Indian Studies, University of Arizona, 1998
• BA, American Indian Studies and Anthropology, Livingston College, Rutgers University, 1996

Areas of Research and Publications

• American Indian health and wellness
• American Indian education
• American Indian legal and social issues, religion and spirituality, sociocultural anthropology, ethnography, community-based participatory research, and cultural-tailoring.

Courses