Introduction

I work in the field of sociocultural anthropology at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina.  My areas of interest are in Maya culture and religious change in Mesoamerica, environmental and sustainability issues, humanistic anthropology, and anthropological approaches to social justice and human rights.  I am also a core faculty member and the current chair of Davidson’s Department of Latin American Studies Program and an affiliate member of the Environmental Studies Department.  Most of my academic research has been conducted in Guatemala, but I remain interested in cultural and political change in Latin America as a whole, as well as communal identity and social change in the southern United States and the Mexico-U.S. border region.  These interests extend to immigration-related human rights issues.