Elizabeth Emma Ferry
Degrees
The Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D.The Johns Hopkins University, M.A.
Columbia University, B.A.
Expertise
Economic anthropology, mining and resources, anthropology of finance, materiality.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. I recently completed a book on mineral collecting of mineral specimens from Mexico in museums and collections in the United States. The describes how and why these byproducts of ore mining come to be valued by people in various walks of life as scientific specimens, religious offerings, works of art, and luxury collectibles. The story of mineral exploration and trade defines a variegated transnational space, shedding new light on the complex relationship between these two countries and on the process of making value itself.I am currently pursuing several projects, including one on artisanal gold mining and uses of gold in Colombia (in conjunction with my brother, photojournalist Stephen Ferry) and another on perceptions among participants in financial markets on the relationship between physical gold and gold based assets.
At Brandeis, I teach courses in economic anthropology, power and violence, Latin American ethnography, media in Latin America, and the anthropology of food.
Courses Taught
| ANTH | 20b | Feast and Famine: Food and Social Relations |
| ANTH | 81a | Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork: Methods and Practice of Anthropological Research |
| ANTH | 131b | Latin America in Ethnographic Perspective |
| ANTH | 148a | Media in Latin America |
| ANTH | 156a | Power and Violence: The Anthropology of Political Systems |
| ANTH | 163b | Production, Consumption, and Exchange |
| ANTH | 183aj | Anthropological Inquiry |
| ANTH | 203b | Contemporary Anthropological Theory |
| ANTH | 340d | Anthropology Graduate Proseminar |
| ANTH/ENG | 150a | Cases and Clues: Reading Novels and Ethnographies as Cultural Explorations |
Awards and Honors
Mandel Faculty Research Grant (2015)
Davis Teaching and Learning Fellow, Center for Teaching and Learning, Brandeis University (2014 - 2015)
Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer '69 and Joseph Neubauer Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring, Brandeis University (2010)
Mandel Humanities Center/NEH award to team teach course on "Writing Across Culture: How Novelists and Anthropologists Depict the Human" in the spring of 2012 (with John Plotz) (2010)
Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellowship, Wellesley College. (2008)
Bernstein Award for Faculty Research (2005)
Norman Award for Faculty Research (2005)
Smithsonian Institution Fellowship, Washington, D.C. (2005 - 2006)
Visiting Research Fellow, Center for US-Mexican Studies, UC San Diego (1999 - 2000)
Scholarship
Ferry, Elizabeth. "Claiming Futures." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2016). (forthcoming)
Ferry, Elizabeth. "On Not Being a Sign: Gold’s Semiotic Claims." Signs and Society (2016). (forthcoming)
Ferry, Elizabeth. "Gold Prices as Material-Social Actors: the Case of the London Fix." The Extractive Industries and Society 3. 1 (2016): 82-85.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Review." Rev. of Mining Capitalism: Corporations and their Critics., by Kirsch, Stuart. Journal of Anthropological Research vol. 71 of 3 2015: 152-153.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Mining, Group Actors and Collective Action in Guanajuato, Mexico.." Resources, Labour and Empire. Ed. David Leadbeater. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Press, 2014
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Invited Comment on "On Keeping and Selling: The Political Economy of Heritage Making in Contemporary Spain" (Jaume Franquesa)." Current Anthropology 54. 3 (2013): 363-365.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico´s National Parks, 1910-1940.." by Emily Wakild. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 17(3): 522-524. vol. 17(3) 2013: 522-524.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "The Birth of the Mineral ‘Aguilarite’ and What Came Next: A Twice-Told Tale.." Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. 18. 3 (2013): 376-394.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. Minerals, Collecting, and Value across the U.S.-Mexican Border. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2013.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Canadian Mining and the Costs to Workers: Notes on the El Cubo/Local 142 Strike, 2010-2011." http://www.miningwatch.ca (2012)
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Economic Anthropology and its Audiences.." Anthropology of this Century http://aotcpress.com/ 5. (2012): <http://aotcpress.com/>.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "If the Miners had been Mexican:” The Chilean Mine Rescue as Mexican “Politics Machine”." Anthropology Today. (2011): vol. 27 (4) 15-18. Atelier Hermes Artist Book, Seoul, Korea. 2012 ed. 2012.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Andrés Manuel del Rio (1764-1849) The father of Mexican mineralogy." Mineralogical Record 42. 5 (2011): 487-492.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "El Patrimonio Minero." La construcción de la idea de nuestro patrimonio histórico y cultural. O de cómo hemos llegado a valorar y celebrar ciertas cosas nuestras.. Ed. Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo. Mexico City: UNAM, 2011
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Waste and Potency: Making Men with Minerals in Guanajuato and Tucson." Comparative Studies in Society and History 53. 4 (2011): 914-944.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "“If the Miners had been Mexican:” The Chilean Mine Rescue as Mexican “Politics Machine”." Anthropology Today 27. 4 (2011): 15-18.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. No Sólo Nuestro: Patrimonio, Valor y Colectivismo en Una Cooperativa Minera Guanajuatense. (translation of my book Not Ours Alone, Columbia 2005). Trans. Marcelo Damiani and Martín Árias. Mexico City/Zamora: Universidad Iberoamericana/Colegio de Michoacán., 2011.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Asuntos de Consumo: Sobre elLugar del Consumo en la Antropología de Minería.." Relaciones XXX. 1 (2010): 57-95.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "Like Ziegfeld Girls Coming Down a Staircase: Exhibting Minerals at the Smithsonian." Journal of Material Culture 15. 1 (2010): 30-63.
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma. "The World of Lucha Libre." Rev. of The World of Lucha Libre, by Heather Levi. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute vol. forthcomin
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.