Education
PhD (2012) University of Texas, Austin MA (2004) University of Texas, Austin BA (1999) University of California, Davis
Courses/Teaching
Decolonizing Anthropology, Community-Engaged Research Methods; Anthropology of South America; Environmental Anthropology; Indigenous Politics; Gendered Worlds: Power, Difference, and In/Equality.
Research and Teaching Interests
My research explores the cultural and political significance of mineral conflicts in the Ecuadorean Andes. I am interested in new forms of social protest that rally human and non-human entities into political struggles against mineral extraction and towards a greater democratization of development practices. My research analyzes how anti-mining protests led by Andean dairy farmers encompassed contradictory forms of multicultural politics that appropriated state discourses to challenge hegemonic forms of racial and spatial political geography of the region.
I am the recipient of awards from the Inter-American foundation and the National Science Foundation. I am also a former research affiliate of the Facultad Latinoamericano de Ciencas Sociales (FLACSO), Ecuador and the University of Manchester’s Program on Territory, Development, and Conflict in the Andes.