Ricardo Ainslie’s work involves a hybrid methodology that draws from psychoanalysis, ethnography, and documentary forms of inquiry. He has spent the last fifteen years working in three small communities in Texas where ethnic and racial conflicts have been salient. In No Dancin’ In Anson: An American Story of Race and Social Change (Jason Aronson, 1995/The Other Press, 2002), he analyzed a small West Texas town’s controversy over dancing to illustrate the social transformation in the community following the Civil Rights Act in the 1960’s. In Hempstead, Texas, he used a documentary film format (Crossover: A Story of Desegregation, 1999) to illustrate the bittersweet legacy of school desegregation in our nation. His work in Jasper, Texas, explores the impact of the murder of James Byrd on that community, and has resulted in a collaboration with documentary photographer Sarah Wilson to create Jasper, Texas: The healing of a community in crisis, a traveling exhibit. He is currently working on two forthcoming books related to the murder (University of Texas Press).
Ricardo Ainslie is a native of Mexico City, Mexico. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan. He is currently a Professor in the department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also an Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Mexican American Studies (University of Texas), the American Studies Program (University of Texas), and the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute. Ricardo Ainslie has also published extensively in scholarly journals, on such topics as psychoanalysis and culture, the psychology of immigration and acculturation. His publications also include The Psychology of Twinship (Jason Aronson, 1997). Among the courses professor Ainslie teaches at the University of Texas is a course titled: “Life History and Documentary Approaches to Inquiry”. Ainslie received the “Outstanding Contribution to Science” award from the Texas Psychological Association in 2002.
Ricardo Ainslie’s current work includes a study of the 1991 Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, New York, and a new documentary film, based on the life of a Mexican immigrant. The latter explores the immigration experience and its effect on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
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