Professor, Anthropology
Director, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Faculty Associate, Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental Change (ACT)
Geographical Areas of Specialization
Peru; Amazonia/Andes; elsewhere, although mostly Latin America
Research Interests
social theory; social movements; race; urban subcultures; music and society; indigenous and afro-descendent rights; political ecology
I study punk subcultures, music, art, popular culture, race, resistance, anarchism, social movements and most anything else that inspires at the intersection of creative multi-media ethnography and critical social theory. Much of my work has been in Latin America, specifically Peru. More generally, I wander around peripatetically with an open eye on the entire hemisphere, the US included. Hopefully, I’ll get around to finishing a back burner project I call Misanthropology, a dark look into the fatally flawed project of being human.
2016. Punk and Revolution: 7 More Interpretations of Peruvian Reality. Durham: Duke University Press. Companion website: www.punkandrevolution.com [Translation: Pank y Revolución 7 Interpretaciones de la Realidad Subterránea. Lima: Pesopluma.]
2016. El Problema Primario del Perú es el Pituco Buenos Aires Madre Selva.
2009 Customizing Indigeneity: Paths to a Visionary Politics in Peru. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. [Translation: Caminos y Carretera: Acostumbrando la Indigenidad en la Selva Peruana. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.]
2017. "On Misanthropology (art, punk, species-hate)" In Between Matter and Method: Encounters in Anthropology and the Arts. Pp.35-50. G. Bakke and M. Peterson, eds. New York: Bloomsbury.
2017. “On Punk and Repulsion, a Misfit Theory of Society” In Anthropology of the Arts: A Reader. G. Bakke and M. Peterson, eds.Pps. 263-273. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
2016. “Peruvian Punk as a Global Means of Underground Production” Popular Music and Society. 39(3): 286-300.
2012. “The Problem of Peru’s Punk Underground” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 24(4):579-590.
2012. “Does still relatively invisible mean less likely to be co-opted? Reflections on the Afro-Peruvian Case” In Black Social Movements in Latin America: From Monocultural Mestizaje to Multiculturalism.Jean Rahier, ed. Pps. 151-168. New York: Palgrave.
2012. “Todos Somos Iguales, Todos Somos Incas: Dilemmas on Afro-Peruvian citizenship and Inca Whiteness in Peru” In Comparative Perspectives on Afro-Latin America. J. Burdick and K. Dixon, eds. Pps. 282-304. Gainsville: University of Florida Press.
2007. “Introduction: On Race, Roots/Routes, and Sovereignty in Latin America’s Afro-Indigenous Multiculturalisms” for special issue of Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. 12(2):329-355.
2007. “Entre lo indio, lo negro, y lo incaico: The Spatial Hierarchies of Difference behind Peru’s Multicultural Curtain” for special issue of Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. 12(2):441-474.
2006. “Getting over the Andes: The Geo-Eco-Politics of Indigenous Movements in Peru’s 21st Century Inca Empire” Journal of Latin American Studies. 38(2): 327-35.
The College of Arts