Research Affiliate
I am a Social Anthropologist with expertise in the anthropology of Latin America and Southeast Europe. This includes theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions on: cultural authenticity; exoticism; resistance, protest and solidarity; austerity and crisis; environmentalism; indigenous modernities; reflexivity; and Graphic Ethnography.
Over the passage of time, my multisited expertise—in indigenous and/or large city contexts—has developed into a dialectic lens which I now use to explore key anthropological issues in my research and teaching. I am fascinated by the anthropological reformulation of an older Kantian question: what could we know about others; and, how do we (social scientists) know what we know (about ourselves and others). In this respect, I am dedicated to the greater project of understanding cultural difference albeit from a robust analytical point of view that does not lose its critical edge by reverting to extreme relativism (see Against Exoticism and De-Pathologising Resistance).
My work in Panama has addressed indigenous representation, authenticity, material culture, ethnic commodification, exoticism, and debates about indigenous modernities. My second ethnographic monograph, Exoticisation Undressed (2016), focussed on the dynamic ambivalence between modernity and indigeneity, which I explained not in structuralist binary terms, but through the mutual constitution (and simultaneity) of indigenous-and-modern identities. My theoretical interventions on the notion of authenticity (see Laying claim to authenticity) advocate for an anti-essentialist understanding of the concept.
My most recent work in Southeast Europe has addressed the anti-austerity movements of the 2010s, urban protest, solidarity initiatives, anti-globalisation, counter-cosmopolitanism and populism (see Democracy’s Paradox: Populism and its Contemporary Crisis and United in Discontent). I conducted long term fieldwork with humanitarian networks, addressing the contradictions that emerged from unreciprocated giving and the repercussions of these for both ethnographic representation and theory (see ‘Solidarity dilemmas in times of austerity’, Cultural Anthropology).
I am also pioneering the development of a new visual subfield—‘Graphic Ethnography.’ This relies on innovative combinations of text and image to popularise and analytically re-conceptualise ethnographic production (see Graphic Ethnography on the Rise, Cultural Anthropology). I have argued for an understanding of graphic ethnography that sees it not merely as a medium of popularization or academic impact, but also as a lens for critical analysis. For this reason, I am developing a theoretical framework (see ‘On the relationship of text and image in Graphic Ethnography’) that identifies graphic ethnography as a horizontal dialectic of words-and-images, overcoming the separation of textuality and images.
Earlier in my career, I made substantial and long-term contributions to environmental anthropology (see my first monograph, Troubles with Turtles, 2003). I have supervised generations of PhD researchers (and post-doctoral fellows) who worked on contemporary environmental challenges, political movements and indigenous politics.
