Kathy M’Closkey is an Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology at the University of Windsor, Ontario. Awarded her PhD in 1996 by York University, her research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada since 1998. She is also a research affiliate with the Southwest Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, the sponsor of Swept Under the Rug: A Hidden History of Navajo Weaving (University of New Mexico Press, 2002, paperback 2008).

Her forthcoming book Why the Navajo Blanket Became a Rug: Excavating the Lost Heritage of Globalization (UNM Press), repositions Navajo weavers and woolgrowers within a globalization and free trade framework. Kathy also served as research director for the 2009 PBS documentary Weaving Worlds, directed by Navajo Bennie Klain of Trickster Films, Austin, TX. Her ongoing research focuses on globalization and gendered injustice, social justice, intellectual and cultural property rights, appropriation, and the political economy of “ collectibles” with a geographic emphasis on historic and contemporary production by Native American artisans living in the southwest United States.