What are the consequences of expanded US border and immigration enforcement in the Americas? How do migrant policing, apprehension, and removal alter livelihoods, landscapes, and wellbeing in migrant-sending communities? Despite decades of mass apprehension and removal of undocu…
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The following pages describe works that I have made during the 15 months (and counting) of the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty years from now, glib didactics describing “this time” will pepper the walls of museums for their surveys of “art practice in the time of plague” (or whatever)…
Reproductive health has gained new ethical and political significance in post-war Guatemala with the increasing participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the pursuit of gender and racial equality. This dissertation is concerned with the way young, marginalized wo…
Maud Oakes (1903-1990) was an American painter, anthropologist, and a student of Carl Jung. This thesis offers a close reading of two of her ethnographic texts based on fieldwork conducted in Todos Santos Cuchumatán, Guatemala between 1945 and 1947. It then considers Maud’s lega…
Political violence has fundamentally shaped memory making in post-conflict Guatemala. This paper examines the Molina Theissen family’s experience of state violence between 1955 and 1981 as well as the 2018 trial of high-ranking military officers for crimes against the family. Bu…
Fuego volcano is one of the most active and hazardous volcanoes in the world. It is located in the northern part of the Central American Volcanic Arc in Guatemala and its activity can be characterized by long term, low-level background activity, and sporadic larger explosive eru…
Water is essential for human subsistence. Stable freshwater supplies are needed as a source of food, drinking water, for transportation, recreation and economic development. Despite their recognized importance, anthropogenic activities have altered freshwater ecosystems around t…
A key part of understanding Maya bone tool production is studying the rare assemblages containing bone tools and bone tool debitage. The Late Classic J-2 assemblage is a distinct composition of lithic, charcoal, human and animal bone at the site of Ucanal, Guatemala. The number …
In this dissertation, I study the role of religion and public ritual in the responses of native communities facing the expansion of colonial powers. Through a combination of archaeological excavations and archival research on early colonial Maya, I explore how religious change i…
In two small Guatemalan towns, residents spend months creating giant kites out of tissue paper and bamboo, which decorate the cemetery on Día de los Muertos. The kites allow the living to honor their dead loved ones and communicate with them, but in a communal setting; grief is …
This dissertation explores the role of the Guatemalan National Police, from 1954 to 1985, as an institution that in the context of the country’s armed conflict and dirty war, became a key part of the machinery of brutality and violence of the Guatemalan State. The work approache…
On a global scale, NGOs have played an important role in development and addressing healthcare inequities over the last several decades. Yet in recent years, the work of NGOs is continuously impacted by processes of socio-cultural, political, and economic change in increasingly …
This research explores the rhetorical features and effects of testimonies (testimonios) in light of revolutionary movements and civil wars that developed in Central America during the Cold War. This non-fiction genre recounts first person narratives of real experiences of guerri…
This paper looks at climate migration which is happening in Guatemala. It reviews the land inequality history and laws in Guatemala. It also focus on the multinational corporations who obtain land and operate, such as the palm oil, mining, and hydro electric dams. The paper also…
As the title suggests, this thesis comprises several works of creative nonfiction. First, "Zen and the Art of Conquest" presents an incomplete narrative, in six chapters, that draws inspiration from Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) and other trave…
Though local capacity-building became an integral part of worldwide practiced community-based approach to conservation, its conceptual framework is still poorly developed. This hampers the effectiveness of local capacity-building interventions and community-based conservation. T…
This dissertation argues that civilization produces genocides. It begins by considering the obstacles to a sociological understanding of genocide. First among these is the metaphysics of rupture that situates genocide radically outside the field of ordinary social relations, tre…
“Of all the social processes, conflict is perhaps the most universal and potentially the most dangerous. A feature of every society and every form of relationship, conflict can be found at all levels of human interaction, from sibling rivalry to genocidal warfare (Bercovitch and…