Title

Professor of International Development

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management

Expertise

Acculturation; inequality; social capital; econometrics; research design; Bolivia; indigenous peoples; native Amazonians; panel studies

Profile

Dr. Godoy is a cultural anthropologist who draws on insights from evolutionary biology and economic theory to formulate hypotheses about the effects of market exposure, globalization, or modernization on the well-being and the use of natural resources of indigenous people. He collaborates with biological and cultural anthropologists from Northwestern University, the University of Georgia, and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in a study called the Tsimane¿ Amazonian Panel Study (TAPS). The research team carries out annual survey waves in which they measure a wide range of socioeconomic, demographic, health, and psychological indicators. The research site in Bolivia is also used as a summer research site for Ph.D. students in cultural anthropology at American universities.

Besides Bolivia and the study of globalization, Dr. Godoy does research on secular trends in health comparing health statistics of citizens in Puerto Rico with citizens on the mainland as part of a broader program on the social epidemiology of colonialism.