I am a cultural anthropologist working on my doctorate at Vanderbilt University. I am also a digital humanist, which means that I bring an activist perspective and a digital lens to my field work among indigenous groups.
I have been conducting research in Chiapas among Maya day keepers, or ritual specialists of the Mayan calendar since 2012, when the Mayan long-count, also known as the Baktun, changed on December 21st. More recently, I am working with the Aymara of the Andean altiplano, studying their resistance against the mega-mining projects that destroy their local environments.
My multimodal dissertation will examine the relationship between gender, extraction and indigenous new media activism among the Aymara. My broader academic research interests include Environmental Anthropology, Andean Studies, Digital Humanities, Gender and Sexuality and the Anthropology of Religion.
Invoking the Earth Mother 