Statement of Research
I am admittedly an eclectic and intrepid transdisciplinary traveler of diverse glocal-oriented research fields. I began college as a comparative literature major and nearly graduated with a degree therein before becoming a devotee of anthropology; equal portions of science and humanities, it was the place for me. My abiding focus in the subdiscipline of media anthropology has provided me great chances to indulge diverse passion in research (as opportunities do when people know you have a good camcorder and some skills.) I have been very fortunate to have been part of two credentialed programs in the visual anthropology (at C.S.U.F. circa 2000, and University of Colorado at Boulder) under the tutelage of three exceptional visual ethnographers.
I continue to be engaged in research in Chiapas, and have gone back every few years to do follow up research, continuing to find connections of Maya media in San Cristobal de las Casas to: the underlying Maya cultural substrate, the individual as artist within community, transnational agents, NGOs, cultural advocates, and San Cristobal de Las Casas itself as a mediaplace within a zone of Zapatista revolutionary politics. I am passionate to introduce students to “small media,” Mohammadi/Sreberny’s use of the term that indexes media of social movements (and cultural revitalization) produced onto platforms that include literature (drama, poetry), pamphlets/declarations/communiqués, and new media platforms, i.e. hypermedia and video production. A few anthropologists have used the word “renaissance” (Montejo, Gossen, Laughlin) to describe the literary, artistic, and intellectual production emerging out of indigenous and transnational grassroots media centers in Mexico and Guatemala, encapsulating a new era of Maya empowerment and self-conscientization. My research theses illustrate and document the origin and social dynamics of an emergent mediasphere as I define it, one among many geographic places and virtual spaces of citizen media producers who have begun to produce self-representative media in diverse platforms, locales, and objectives that include the pursuit of cultural, political and network capital.
In January 2020 I accepted an offer to teach an online course for the following year (January, 2021) in the history of human communication. With the lowering of course offerings due to COVID, I decided that I would prepare for this new university course by writing a full book on the subject, now being expanded to two volumes. Homo Communicatus: The Story of Human Communication (Books 1 & 2) excavates elemental questions of human self-understanding by looking closely at the origin and transformation of the age-old stories human beings have told themselves about themselves—a journey through anthropology’s four fields. It has been a transformative experience researching for the book: a story going back to deep earth-time, and all the way forward into meme culture of the present. It is also a story that has opened up considerably in the last few years with a wealth of new and simply amazing research from diverse fields. I have finished two chapters of Book 1 at this point and am pushing forward with the aid of a literary agent.
Three years ago I was introduced to the founder of the current walking labyrinth movement (Lauren Artress) who allowed me to interview her at Chartres, France. (This interview evolved into Labyrinths of Solace, a documentary film.) While in Europe I undertook research in pilgrimage along the Camino Santiago in Spain, which is now starting to bear fruit in upcoming published articles, and recent AAA papers on a phenomenon I am calling “restorative rituals:” religious practices like Taize, Labyrinth Walks, and Evensong, now practiced in “liturgy-free” formats in progressive communities. Some restorative rituals are new, some are age-old rituals reimagined into contemplative-therapeutic syncretisms. In a global era replete with personal isolation, restorative rituals fill a much-needed gap in the absence of communitas and companionship; these rituals foster resilience of spirit.
While at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I was able to travel into Chiapas, Mexico, often and undertook transnational research with Maya citizens of Alamosa, Colorado. In Spring 2009, I was able to walk with some of my informants across the border from Guatemala into Mexico (at Tapachula) and up the ruta al Norte into Texas. In the summer of 2014, I was able to undertake follow-up research in Mexico and Guatemala to round out interviews for upcoming publications with grant monies I received from a Professional Development Funding Research Grant from U.C. Berkeley—where I was instructing at the time. Like stories of immigration have been written into the plays of the Maya playwriting collective Sna Jtz’Ibajom, one among the four media collectives in Chiapas I have written and published about.
In December of 2019, with a crew of interns I began work on two media sites projects dedicated to applying media anthropology to the public sphere. Www.mondoglobe.com is dedicated to assembling and distributing citizens’ media uploaded onto the creative commons of Youtube,. For a few years now I have been dedicated to the finding a means to unite self-representative reportage with critical academic journal publication and inquiry. I believe this can be achieved by reformatting a news website to actively combine, solicit, and post (1) local testimony and cell phone media with (2) geographically informed academics (as context commentators) and (3) on-the-ground coverage by informed ethnographers where and when safely possible. The goal is to provide an online news journal that “covers the world” with localized testimony yet also provide deep-level background and context to global news events, filling in the lacunae of independent investigative reporting left by the downsizing of mainstream journalism. It is my passion to continue to grow these research websites at a university with the effort of local students and collaboration of faculty interested in documenting and reporting upon global events. Www.storiestosavealife.com was created to provide survivor testimonies so that viewers in depression might hear stories and lessons of resilience to bolster psychological strength and endurance. I am currently transforming into a not-for-profit organization, while juggling the demands of publishing and preparing courses.
In the coming years, I would like to continue to supplement my past ethnographic research with necessary revision while opening new queries for continuing research in Chiapas, along the border in El Paso, Texas, and go back to Catalonia and the Basque region of Spain where I have learned my ancestors hail from. While in Spain over the last two summers, I spoke to many families about the issue of language nationalism that sometimes divides communities and families around the issue. Finally—with time off teaching a 18 unit load—I am polishing a number of articles abstracted from my post-dissertation work and preparing them for publication on topics of: Maya Activism and Media Capital in Social Movements; Narrative Holism: Rhetoric & Anthropology in the New Millennial; and Walking Meditation, Non-Liturgical Practices of Faith: Finding Spirit in Restorative Rituals.
Thank you for your interest!