University of Chicago: Department of Anthropology: About the Department

University of Chicago Anthropologists who work in Latin America & the Caribbean

Faculty
Students:
     Preparing for the field
     In the field
     Writing up
     Recent PhDs

Faculty:

Manuela Carneiro da Cunha - Goias, Brazil (Kraho), Upper Jurua, Acre, Brazil; Nigeria; Archives in Portugal, England, Italy, France (Amazonian ethnology, traditional peoples' land and intellectual rights, indigenous history, ethnicity, slavery and emancipation)
Shannon Lee Dawdy (A) - Cuba and the Caribbean (archaeology and historical anthropology of the 18th - 19th centuries, race and ethnicity, maritime culture, urban planning, food and agriculture, formation of creole societies, development of colonial strategies of rule)
Alan Kolata (A) - Tiwanaku Valley/Lake Titicaca basin, Bolivia; Moche Valley, Peru; Cambodia (Archaeology and ethnohistory, preindustrial urbanism, development of agricultural systems, human-environment interactions, anthropology of development)
Stephan Palmié - Caribbean (Cuba) (Afro-Caribbean religions, historical anthropology, constructions of race and ethnicity)
Robin Shoaps - Guatemala, Yucatan (Linguistic anthropology, Mayan languages and cultures, personhood and subjectivity, family interaction and socialization, moral discourse, Christianities in the US and Latin America)
Paul Friedrich - Mexico (Tarascan linguistics); Kerala, India; Russian/Caucasus
M-Rolph Trouillot - Caribbean (Haiti, Dominica) (Social theory, historical anthropology, political economy)
Terence Turner - Kayapo of Central Brazil & Upper Xingu; East New Britain, PNG

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Students:

Preparing for the Field

Adela Amaral (A) - Mexico (Archaeology of the African Diaspora, identity, politics of culture, culture contact, colonialism)
Emilia Arellano - Zacatecas, Mexico/Chicago (Circulation & subjectivity, the semiotics of civic practices, social space; the investment of collective remittances in public works projects and the politics of long-distance membership in Zacatecas, Mexico)
Jonah Augustine (A) - Bolivia, Titicaca Basin, Tiwanaku (Political landscapes, settlement patterns, urban/rural dynamics, pre-Columbian hierarchical polities; patterns of consumption; agricultural production
Elizabeth Brummel - Guatemala, Kenya (Linguistic anthropology, language ideology, language socialization)
Zachary Chase (A) (Jt/History) - Andes/Peru (Ethnohistory, landscape, historical archaeology; "The Historical, Ritual and Mythological Landscapes of Huarochiri, Peru")
Falina Enriquez - Brazil (Body ideals/aesthetics, plastic surgery, discourse, Foucauldian bio-power, media, medical anthropology, linguistic anthropology)
Phoebe France (A) - Brazil (Paleobotanical and/or bioarchaeological studies of southern colonial Brazil in mission or mining contexts; changing ecological, ritual and political landscapes)
Anna Guengerich (A) - Andes (Domestic settings, food and consumption, power relations)
Elina Hartikainen - Brazil (Candomblé, religious mobility, religion, ritual, linguistic anthropology; "Talk by and about the Spirits: Language, Community and Spirit Possession in Brazilian Candomblé)
Chelsey Kivland - Caribbean, Haiti (Historical consciousness, performance and narration of pasts, regimes of community: culture, value, nationhood, production; modern political orders. Carnival)
Mary Leighton (A) - Andes (The use and impact of archaeology -- especially the political, ideological and economic impact of archaeological tourism and foreign excavations on indigenous peoples)
Erik Levin (Jt/Linguistics) - Amazonian Peru ("Constructions of Truths and Authority with Grammaticized Evidentiality in Shamanic Discourse of the Rio Inuya Amawaka of Peru")
Marcos Mendoza - S. Chile, S. Argentina (Glaciers National Park, Patagonia); W. Mexico (Capitalism ecology, risk; law, security and the state in the Southern Cone; "Natures of Neoliberalism: Risk Expertise and the Globalization of Political Uncertainty in Glaciers National Park, Patagonia")
G. Duff Morton (Jt/Social Service Admin.) - Brazil (Economic anthropology, ideas of equality, social services/ anthropology of social work, development, social movements, "identities of deprivation," homelessness/landlessness, household economies)
David Pacifico (A) - Andes (History and identity; landscape and meaning, material culture; community and identity; public interest archaeology; communities surrounding archaeological sites)
Jonah Rubin - Latin America & the Caribbean/El Salvador (Political and legal anthropology, collective memory, anthropology of history, [neo]liberalism)
Caroline Schuster - Argentina/Paraguay/Brazil tri-national border area (Economic anthropology, development policy, Ciudad de Este tree trade zone, microcredit, fungibility of legitimate money and the grey economy; indigeneity, state/multicultural statecraft; the figure of the terrorist and entrepreneur)
(Joseph) Jay Sosa - Brazil (Textual analysis of culture, sexual identity vs sexual practices, civil rights discourse, social movements, globalization)
LaShandra Sullivan - Southeast Brazil (Oil economies, mineral extraction; "Ethanol fuel production in Brazil's Southeast")

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In the Field

João Felipe Gonçalves - Havana, Miami, "Nationalism and the City: Havana and Miami as Capitals of the Cuban Revolution and Exile, 1959-1995"
Laura-Zoe Humphreys (Jt.w/Cinema/Media Studies) - Cuba, "Films That Make You Think: Cuban Cinema between the Socialist State and the Global Market"
Zada Johnson - Caribbean & New Orleans, "The Second-Line after the Storm: Race and Space in the Street Parade Traditions of Post-Katrina New Orleans"
Sarah Luna - Mexico/Texas, "The Threat of the Gringo's Erotic Playground: Sex Work, Mexican Nationalism, and the US/Mexico Border"
Jason Ramsey (A) - Mesoamerica/Yucatan, "La Pro(piedad), or the Piety in Possession: Popular Consumption and Negotiations of Status on a Yucatecan Hacienda, 1700-1847"
Gustavo Rivera - Belo Horizonte, Brazil, "Spatial Governance: The Negotiation of Slum-Upgrading Programs in Belo Horizonte, Brazil"
Tien-Ann (Anne) Shih (A) - Peru, "Miracles and Ritual Transformation in the District of Vilcashuaman, Peru 1563-1670"
Jeffrey Stvan (A) - Jequetepeque valley, north coastal Peru; "Constructing Moche V: Architectural Practice and Socio-Spatiality in the Lower Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, AD 550-750"
Lauren Wynne - Rural Mexico (Yucatan), "Bodies, Objects and Agency: Eating in Hunuku, Yucatan"

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Writing Up

William Autry (A) - Mixteca Region, Southern Mexico; "Depopulation & the Transformation of Mixteca Society in the Early Colonial Period, 1500-1700: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Approach"
Greg Beckett - Port-au-Prince, Haiti; "The End of Haiti: History Under Conditions of Impossibility"
Diana Bocarejo - Colombia; "Reconfiguring the Political Landscape after the Multicultural Turn: Law, Politics, and the Spatialization of Difference in Columbia"
Yarimar Bonilla - Guadeloupe; "A Striking Past: Labor Unions and the Politics of History in Postcolonial Guadeloupe"
Nicole Castor - Port of Spain, Trinidad; "Invoking the Spirit: Religion and the Politics of Nationhood in Trinidad"
Benjamin Eastman - Cuba; "Playing with Fire: Baseball and Moral Authority in Contemporary Cuba"
Santiago Giraldo (A) - Colombia; "Lords of the Snowy Ranges: Spatiotemporal Transformations of Landscape in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia (1000-1600 AD)"
Byron Hamann (Jt.Hist) - Oaxaca, Mexico/Valencia, Spain; "Bad Christians, New Spains: Transatlantic Transformations, Inquisitions, and Local Social Conflicts in 16th Century Yanhuitlán and Valencia"
Robert Hamrick (Jt.Linguistics) - Sta. Catarina Palopó, Guatemala; "Sociolectal Difference in a Town of Shopkeepers"
Jeffrey S. Kahn (JD/PhD) - Cuba/Haiti/US, "Bodies, Borders, and the Politics of Quarantine: The Haitian Migrants on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, 1991-1994"
Alison Kohn (A/SC) - La Paz, Bolivia; "Of Bricks and Blood: Constructing Vernacular Urban Space and Social Lives in La Paz, Bolivia"
Steven Kosiba (A) - Cusco Valley, Peru; "Making the Imperial Heartland: Household Land, Labor, and Life during Inka Political Development (Cusco, Peru)"
Rocio Magaña - Mexico/US border: Arizona-Sonora; "Desert Interventions: Life, Death, and Sovereignty along the Arizona-Mexico Border"
Christine Malcom (P) - Osmore Drainage, Southern Peru; "Population Dynamics and Restructuring in the Osmore Drainage, Southern Peru"
Katherine McGurn Centellas - La Paz, Bolivia; "For Love of Land and Laboratory: Nation-Building and Bioscience in Bolivia"
Sean Mitchell - Alcântara, Maranhao, Brazil; "Relaunching Alcântara: Space, Race, Technology and Inequality in Brazil"
Sarah Muir - Bueno Aires, Argentina; "Theorizing Crisis: Psychoanalysis and Conspiracy among the Buenos Aires Middle Class"
Alejandro Paz (Ling) - Latin America & Israel/Palestine; "Discursive Transformation: Ethnolinguistic Identities among Latin American Labor Migrants and Their Children in Israel"
Jailey Philpot-Munson - Nebaj, highland Guatemala; "In God We Trust": Evangelical Churches, NGOs and 'Civil Society' in Post-War Guatemala"
Yan Phoa - La Paz & Machaca (W of LaPaz near Lake Titicaca), Bolivia; "Catholic Radio, rural Community Development, and Ethnic Identity in Highland Bolivia, 1950s-1990s"
Patricia Rodrigues - Bananal Island, Central Araguaia Valley, Brazil; "Otherness and Change in Central Brazil: The Javae and Their Interaction with Brazilian Society"
Clare Sammells - Tiwanaku, Bolivia; "Tourism and Capitalism in Tiwanaku, Boliva"
Patrick Scott (A) - Jequeteqeque Valley, Peru; "The Value and Foreignness in the Late Moche Period Jequetepeque Valley, Peru"
Stephen Scott - La Paz/El Alto, Bolivia; "The Metrological Mountain: Tuberculosis Control and Technopolitics in Periurban Bolivia"
Joao Torres - Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro & Brasilia, Brazil; "Anthropology of Transnational Mass Media: An Ethnographic Incursion into Brazilian Cable TV"
Juan Villarias Robles - Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Spain - Inka empire archives; "The Inkan Empire's Economic System and Civil War (c 1527-1532)"
Rihan Wen Xin YEH - Northern Mexican border area/Tijuana, Baja California; "Passing: An Ethnography of Status, Self, and Public Life in the Mexican Border Town of Tijuana"

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Recent PhDs

Robert Albro - Quillacollo, Bolivia; “Hazarding Popular Spirits: Metaforces of Political Culture & Cultural Politicking in Quillacollo, Bolivia”
Patricia Anderson (A) - Yula, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico; “Yula Yucatan, Mexico: Terminal Political Organization in the Chichen Itza Polity”
Aaron Ansell - Acauã, Piauí, Brazil; "Zero Hunger in the Backlands: Neoliberal Welfare and the Assault on Clientelism in Brazil"
Christopher Ball (JtLing) - Brazil/Amazonia; "Out of the Park: Trajectories of Waura (Xingu Arawak) Language and Culture"
Christopher Begley (A) - Miskito coast, Eastern Honduras; “Elite Power Strategies & External Connections in Ancient Eastern Hondurans”
Anthony Berkely (Ling) - Chechmil, Yucatan, Mexico; “Remembering and Revitalization: The Archive of Pure Maya”
Deborah Blom (P) - Tiwanaku, Bolivia & Moquegua, Mid-valley, Southern Peru; “Tiwanaku Regional Interaction & Social Identity: A Bioarchaeological Approach”
Judith Boruchoff - Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico//Chicago, IL; “Creating Continuity across Borders: Reconfiguring the Spaces of Community, State and Culture in Guerrero, Mexico and Chicago”
Brian Brazeal - Cachoeira, Bahia, Brazil; "Blood, Money and Fame: Nagô Magic in the Bahian Backlands"
Shelley Burgess (P) - Chiribaya, South Coast of Peru; “Chiribayan Skeletal Pathology on the South Coast of Peru: Patterns of Production and Consumption”
Gisela Canepa-Koch - Paucartambo & Lima, Peru; “Geopolitics and Geopoetics of Dance: Migration, Identity and Place in the Peruvian Imaginary: Fiestas and Devotional Dances in Paucartambo-Cuzco and Lima”
Cavalcanti Rocha dos Santos, Mariana - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; "Of Shacks, Houses, and Fortresses: An Ethnography of Favela Consolidation in Contemporary Rio de Janeiro"
Michael Cepek - Amazonian Ecuador (Cofan people); “The Cofan Experiment: Expanding an Indigenous Amazonian World”
Kyungjin Cho - Iquique, Chile; “The Culture of Boom-and-Bust and the Iquique Duty-Free Zone: Iquique ’s Struggle to Find its Place in the Chilean Nation-State”
Ryan Cook - Puebla/Mt. Popocatepetl, Mexico; “Weather Workers, Saucer Seekers, and Orthoscientists: Epestemic Authority in Central Mexico”
Nicole Couture (A) – Tiwanaku, Bolivia; “The Construction of Power: Monumental Space and Elite Residence at Tiwanaku”
Alexander Dent - Campinas, Itapira & Sao Paulo Brazil; “Country Critics: Música Caipira and the Production of Locality in Brazil”
Gregory Downey - Salvador, Cachoeira & Santo Amarao, Bahia State, Brazil; “Indorporating Capoeira [an Afro-Brazilian dance form]: Phenomenology of a Movement Discipline”
Alan Durston - Cuzco & Ayacucho regions of Peru; “Pastoral Quechua: The History of Christian Translation in Peru, 1550-1650”
Laurie Frederik Meer - Cuba; "Pure Cuba: Preemptive Nostalgia and ‘La Batalla' to Defend National Culture in Rural Theater Performance"
Martin Giesso (A) - Tiwanaku, Bolivia; “Stone Tool Production in the Tiwanaku Heartland: The Impact of State Emergence and Expansion on Local Households”
L. Shane Greene - North-Central Selva of Peru (Awajun-Jivaro); “Paths to a Visionary Politics: Customizing History and Transforming Authority in the Peruvian Selva”
Esther Hamburger - Sao Paulo & Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; “Politics & Intimacy in Brazilian Telenovelas
Ariana Hernandez-Reguant - Havana, Cuba; “Radio Taino and the Globalization of the Cuban Culture Industries”
Matthew Hill - Havana, Cuba; “Globalizing Havana: World Heritage and Urban Redevelopment in a Late Socialist City”
Catherine Howard - Northern states of Roraima, Para & Ampa, Brazil; “Wrought Identities: The Waiwai Expeditions in Search of the "Unseen Tribes" of Amazonia [Upper Xingu]”
Etty Indriati (P) – Peru; “A Dental Anthropological Approach to Coca Leaf Chewing in the Andes”
John Janusek (A) - Tiwanaku, Bolivia; “State & Local Power in a Prehispanic Andean Polity: Changing Patterns of Urban Residence in Tiwanaku and Lukurmata, Bolivia”
Jessica Jerome - Fortaleza, Ceara State, Brazil; “A Politics of Health: Medicine and Marginality in Northeastern Brazil”
Paul Kokelman (Ling) - Chicacnab, highland Guatemala; “Subjectivity as Stance under Neoliberal Governance: Language and Labor, Mind and Measure, among the Q’eqchi’ Maya”
Eric Kramer - Rio de Janeiro & Sao Paulo, Brazil; “Possessing Faith: Commodification, Religious Subjectivity and Community in a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal Church”
Paul Liffman - Nayarit & Jalisco States, Western Mexico; “Huichol Territoriality: Land Claims and Cultural Representation in Western Mexico”
Kathleen Lowrey - Lowland Bolivia (Izozog, La Paz & Santa Cruz); “Enchanted Ecology: Magic, Science, and Nature in the Bolivian Chaco”
Nene Lozada Cerna (P) - La Yaral, Southern Peru; “The Señorio of Chiribaya: A Bioarchaeological Study in the Osmore Drainage of Southern Peru”
Jeffrey Mantz - Dominica (Caribbean); “Lost in the Fire, Gained in the Ash: Moral Economies of Exchange in Dominica”
Daniel Noveck - Chihuahua, Mexico; "Playing Places: Imagining the Indigenous in the Rarámuri Indian Violin"
Suzanne Oakdale - Xingu National Park, Brazil (Kayabi); “The Power of Experience: Agency and Identity in Kayabi Healing and Political process in the Xingu Indigenous Park (Brazil)”
Andrew Orta - Aymara communities of the Bolivian Altiplano + LaPaz; “Ambivalent Converts: Aymara Catechists & Contemporary Catholic Missionization on the Bolivian Altiplano”
Baron Pineda - Puerto Cabezas, Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua; “The 'Port People' of Bilwi: Ideologies of Race, Lexicons of Identity, and the Politics of Peoplehood in the Mosquito Coast (Nicaragua)”
Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría (A) - Mexico City; “Food, Eating, and Objects of Power: Class Stratification and Ceramic Production and Consumption in Colonial Mexico”
Stuart Rockefeller - Quirpini & San Lucas, Bolivia; “Where are You Going?: Work, Power and Movement in the Bolivian Andes”
Paul Ryer - Havana, Cuba; “Cubanidad, La Yuma and África: Racial and National Consciousness in Contemporary Cuba”
Roger Sansi-Roca - Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; “Fetishes, Images, Commodities, Art Works: Afro-Brazilian Art and Culture in Bahia”
Franz Scaramelli (A) - Middle Orinoco, Venezuela; “Indoctrination and Agency in the 18th Century Missionary Regime, Middle Orinoco, Venezuela”
Kay Tarble Scaramelli (A) - Middle Orinoco, Venezuela; "Picking Up the Pieces: Ceramic Production and Consumption on the Middle Orinoco Colonial Frontier"
Tara Schwegler - Mexico City; “Negotiating Authority: The Intersection of Economic Knowledge and Political Practice in Mexico”
Matthew Seddon (A) - Island of the Sun, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia; “Ritual, Power and the Development of a Complex Society: The Island of the Sun and the Tiwanaku State”
Kimbra Smith - Cajamarca, Peru; “The Politics of Cultural Production in Northern Peru”
Daniel Suslak (Jt.Ling.) - Oaxaca, Mexico; “The Future of Totontepecano Mixe: Youth and Language in the Mixe Highalnds (Oaxaca, Mexico)"
Edward Swenson (A) - Jequetepeque Valley, north coastal Peru; “Ritual and Power in the Urban Hinterland: Religious Pluralism and Political Decentralization in Late Moche Jequetepeque, Peru"
David Tancredi (MD/PhD) - Huejutla, Mexico; “Reckoning with Biomedicine in Huejutla, Hidalgo, Mexico”
David Tavarez - Mexico, France, Spain; “Invisible Wars: Idolatry Extirpation and Native Responses in Nahua and Zapotec Communities, 1536-1728”
Rebecca Tolen - Riobamba area & Guamote, Highland Ecuador; “Wool and Orlon: Countryside and City: Dress, Race and History in Chimborazo, Highland Ecuador”
Leticia Medeiros Veloso - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; “Remaking the Future: Childhood and the Paradoxes of Citizenship in the Brazilian Democratic Imagination”
Emily Vogt – Martinique; “The Ghosts of the Plantation: Historical Representations and Cultural Difference among Martinique's White Elite"
Flavio Wiik - Ibirama near Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil; “Christianity Converted: A Contemporary Ethnography of the Xokleng Laklanõ ( Southern Gê ) Indians: The History and Sociocultural Processes Resulting from their Encounter with Pentecostalism”
Luis Zayas - Tamandaré, NE Coastal Brazil; “‘Agrarian Reform at Sea’: Development and Social Change in a Fishing Community of Northeast Brazil”

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