Faculty Guide

Title

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Anthropology

Expertise

Economic anthropology, Property and value, Latin America, Mexico.

Profile

My interests lie in Mexico and U.S.-Mexican relations, and in silver mining, with special focus on theoretical concepts of patrimony and the production of value. My current book project looks at the extraction, circulation and consumption of mineral specimens from Mexican mines, by miners, dealers, collectors, curators and mineralogists, to see how these transactions manifest and influence the experience of transnational space.
This project addresses questions of great interest in the fields of popular culture, migration, and politics, but from a fresh perspective.

In the future, I plan to research the recently enhanced activities of Canadian mining companies in Mexico, focusing on several localiteis. I am especially interested in the role of NGOs and Corporate Social Responsibility projects in these places, and their understanding of longstanding debates within Mexican mining localities over the proper role of corporations in society.

At Brandeis, I teach courses in economic anthropology, power and violence, Latin American ethnography, development, and the anthropology of food.

Awards and Honors

Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellowship, Wellesley College. (2008)

Smithsonian Institution Fellowship, Washington, D.C. (2005)

Visiting Research Fellow, Center for US-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego (1999)

Courses Taught

ANTH	20b	Feast and Famine: Food and Social Relations
ANTH	55a	Anthropology of Development
ANTH	83a	Anthropological Inquiry
ANTH	131b	Latin America in Ethnographic Perspective
ANTH	156a	Power and Violence: The Anthropology of Political Systems
ANTH	163b	Production, Consumption, and Exchange
ANTH	205b	Anthropological Approaches to Development
GS	202b	Critical Global Issues
GSAS	302d	Interdisciplinary Dissertation Seminar

Scholarship

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma and Mandana Limbert, ed. Timely Assets: the Politics of Resources and their Temporalities. Santa Fe, NM: School of Advanced Research Press., 2008.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Moumental Ambivalence: The Politics of Heritage." Rev. of Monumental Ambivalence: The Politics of Heritage, by Lisa Breglia. American Ethnologist 2008

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "2006 Memory as Wealth, History as Commerce: Uses of Patrimony in a Central Mexican City.." Ethos: the Journal of Psychological Anthropology 34. 2 (2006): 297-324..

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent: Culture, Conservation and the State in Contemporary Mexico.." Rev. of Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent: Culture, Conservation and the State in Contemporary Mexico., by Nora Haenn. Journal of Anthropological Research. vol. 62 (3) 401-403.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Juan Soldado: Rapist, Murderer, Martyr, Saint." Rev. of Juan Soldado: Rapist, Murderer, Martyr, Saint, by Paul Vanderwood. Anthropological Quarterly vol. 79(3) 561-565.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Geologies of Power: Value Transformations and Mexican Mineral Specimens." American Ethnologist 32. 3 (2005).

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico.. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Negociando la Transición: Producción Flexible, Conciencia y Calidad en Guanajuato, Mexico, 1996-2001." Guanajuato: Aportaciones Recientes para su Estudio. Ed. Moctezuma, Patricia Uzeta, Jorge & Ruíz, Juan Carlos ­. San Luis Potosi­: Colegio de San Luis and Centro D., 2004

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma Walsh, Casey Laveaga, Gabriela S. Sesia, Paola & Hill, Sarah. Social Relations of Mexican Commodities: Power, Production and Place. La Jolla: UCSD Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies., 2003.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Envisioning Power in Mexico: Legitimacy, Crisis and the Practice of Patrimony.." Journal of Historical Sociology 16. 1 (2003): 22-53.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Fetishism and Hauism in Central Mexico: Understanding Commodity Production in a Cooperative Setting." Research in Economic Anthropology 22. (2003): 261.

Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Inalienable Commodities: the Production and Circulation of Silver and Patrimony in a Mexican Mining Cooperative.." Cultural Anthropology 17. 3 (2002): 331-358.