Distinguished Professor, Sociology and Anthropology and Director, Global Development Studies
I am a cultural anthropologist who studies the cultural politics of economic development in Central America. I am especially interested in the role that gender, class, race and ethnic difference play in defining the actors, processes, and outcomes of development projects, both locally and globally. I have been conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Central America for over 30 years, most recently focusing on China-Central America relations.
Based on ethnographic research in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, my most recent book Transpacific Developments: The Politics of China and Chineseness in Central America (2021, Cornell University Press) explores the different forms that China—including the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and local Chinese diaspora—has taken in the region and how these multiple forms are reshaping the nature and stakes of local development. In 2025, I was awarded an ACLS Project Development Grant to conduct the next phase of that research, focusing on the localization of China-Central America relations in Guatemala and Costa Rica.
My first book, Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Identity and Development Politics in Latin America (2010, Stanford U Press) examined the work of Guatemalan indigenous development organizations and UN-sponsored projects with Latinos in the United States to show how both states and international institutions embraced community-based actors as the ideal agents of neoliberal development.
Recent Publications
2026 “The Urban Unbound: Global Urban China Beyond Borders,” In Sage Handbook of Urbanization in China, editors Lisa Hoffman, Jennifer Hubbert, and Zhilin Liu. Los Angeles and Washington, D.C: Sage Publishing, pp. 539-556. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-urbanization-in-china/book284948#description
2025 [with Carol Chan] Dossier: Estudios Transregionales: Propuestas metodológicas y teóricas para aproximar los vínculos históricos y las relaciones contemporáneos entre Asia y América Latina” Revista Estudios Avanzados, Núm 43, 16 de diciembre, pp. i-xvi, https://www.revistas.usach.cl/ojs/index.php/ideas/article/view/7762/26006397
2025 “Reorientando América Latina a través de un análisis transpacífico” [Re-orienting Latin America through a Transpacific Analytic], Transregional Studies Dossier, Revista Estudios Avanzados, Num 43, 16 de diciembre, pp. 79-102, http://doi.org/10.35588/jy5sh850
2025 “The Re-Sinification of Costa Rica’s Chinatown” Anthropology Today 41(6):14-16.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.70029.
2025 “Re-Orienting Transpacific Commerce: On the Subject of Chinese Entrepreneurialism in Central America,” Economic Anthropology. Available online 10/24 at https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sea2.12331
2018 "The Impact of Chinese Anti-Corruption Policies in Costa Rica: Emerging Entrepreneurialisms." Journal of Latin American Geography, Special Issue "New Geographies of China and Latin American Relations," Julie Klinger and Tom Narins, eds. 17(2):167-190.
2018 "China-Costa Rica Infrastructure Projects: Laying the Groundwork for Development?" In Building Development for a New Era: China’s Infrastructure Projects in Latin America and the Caribbean," Enrique Dussel Peters, Ariel Armony and Shoujun Cui, eds. Mexico City, MX: Asian Studies Center, Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh and Red Académica de América Latina y el Caribe sobre China, pp. 3-23.
2017 “Chino Tico Routes and Repertoires: Cultivating Chineseness and Entrepreneurism for a New Era of Transpacific Relations” The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. Special Issue on “Entrepreneurship, Artisans and Traders: The Remaking of China-Latin American Economies,” Julia Mueller and Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, eds. (Early View online April 6, 2017).
2012 "Re-modeling the Global Development Landscape: The China Model and South- South Cooperation in Latin America,” Third World Quarterly, 33(7):1359-1375.
Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Identity and Development Politics in Latin America (2010) Stanford: Stanford University Press.