Eden Mekonen

Eden Mekonen (she/her/እሷ) is a dual-title PhD candidate in Geography and African Studies whose scholarship explores the spatial, relational, and temporal dimensions of memory-making and placemaking within and across Horn of Africa diasporas. As a Human Geographer, Eden employs intersectional participatory research approaches to examine how diasporic communities produce, negotiate, and sustain collective memory and cultural practices in both local and transnational contexts. Her research investigates how communities use (digital) placemaking and mutual aid to foster belonging, navigate (im)migration, and respond to shifting socio-political landscapes. Eden is committed to collaborative research methodologies, engaging East African (im)migrants in participatory action research to co-create knowledge around digital cultural preservation, community memorialization, and the spatial politics of identity.

Currently, Eden serves as the Digital Project Manager and Metadata Curator of the Colored Conventions Project and is an active member of the Douglass Day Community Engagement Committee at the Center for Black Digital Research. She is also the Black Alumni Organization (BAO) of Occidental College’s Critical Hope and Black Life at Oxy Co-Archivist.

Eden’s prior professional experience includes serving as an AmeriCorps Public Ally with Las Fotos Project and as an Ethiopian Diaspora Fellow with the Selamta Family Project. Eden also spent several years working at Stanford University’s Haas Center for Public Service, where she facilitated and supported students’ exploration of the intersections of public service leadership, ethics, and sustainable community partnerships around issues of justice, equity, and belonging locally and (inter)nationally.

Eden holds an M.S. in Geography from Penn State and a B.A. in Critical Theory and Social Justice with an emphasis in Postcolonial Theory and an Interdisciplinary Writing minor from Occidental College. Through her academic and professional work, Eden is dedicated to illuminating the layered geographies of diaspora, belonging, and collective care.