Legal anthropology, anthropology of human rights, political anthropology, queer activism, gender and sexuality studies, linguistic anthropology, language ideologies, China, Hong Kong
Nathan Madson
Staff Attorney
Advocates for Human Rights, Minneapolis
Entered 2014
Nathan H. Madson (he/him/his) is a human rights advocate, educator, and interdisciplinary scholar. He currently works as a staff attorney on the International Justice Project at The Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis. His research addresses the work of LGBTQ+ activists in Hong Kong and their engagement with human rights discourses and law. He is particularly interested in the ways in which activists navigate and redefine the local and the transnational.
Madson’s work was funded by the National Science Foundation, Law & Social Sciences Program.
His work has appeared or will appear in Law & Social Inquiry, American Anthropologist, National Lawyers Guild Review, and Asian Studies Review.
Madson also co-hosts the podcast Notes from the Field, in which he and co-host Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz provide easily understandable anthropological content to listeners outside of academia. Prior to graduate school, Madson co-founded an organization to provide free legal services to marginalized queer and trans people in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
Madson received his PhD in cultural anthropology from New York University in 2021. He received his JD magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2011 and his BA in international affairs summa cum laude from the George Washington University in 2008.