Diane M Nelson, Associate Professor
| Office Location: | 201D Science Building |
| Office Phone: | +1 919 684 2069 |
| Email Address: | 
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| Web Page: |
Education:
- PhD Stanford University 1996
- MA Stanford University 1992
- B.A. Wellesley College 1985
- Junior year abroad Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain 1983
- American Field Service 4-month student exchange Mérida, Mexico 1980
- Specialties:
- Identity
- 1981
- Gender
- Central America & the Caribbean
Research Interests:
I began fieldwork in Guatemala in 1985 exploring the impact of civil war on highland indigenous communities with a focus on the more than 100,000 people made into refugees and 200,000 people murdered in what the United Nations has called genocidal violence. Since then my research has sought to understand the causes and effects of this violence, including the destruction and reconstruction of community life (Guatemala: Los Polos de Desarrollo: El Caso de la Desestructuracin de las Comunidades Indigenas CEIDEC1988). In A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala (University of California Press 1999) I describe the relationship between the Guatemalan state and the Mayan cultural rights movement. When asked about indigenous organizing many Guatemalans call it "a finger in the wound." How do material bodies those literally wounded in 35- years of civil war, and those locked in the fear-laden embrace of sexual conquest, domestic labor, mestizaje, and social change movements relate to the wounded body politic? My work draws on popular culture like jokes, rumors, global TV, and subjugated dreams of a "new race" as well as contemporary theories of political economy, subject-formation, the post-colonial, memory, and ethnic, national, gender, and sexual identifications. It explores the relations among Mayan rights activists, ladino (non-indigenous) Guatemalans, the state, and transnational contexts including anthropologists. My new project grows from my interests in cultural studies and cyborg anthropology and explores science and technology development in Guatemala and Latin America more generally. I am focusing on laboratory and clinical research on vector and blood-borne diseases like malaria and dengue and the intersection of this knowledge production with health care in the midst of neo-liberal reforms and popular demands. In the summer of 2003 I began new fieldwork on this interest in Venezuela, while continuing my research in Guatemala.
- Recent Publications
(More Publications)
- D.M. Nelson. Reckoning: The Ends of War in Guatemala. Duke University Press, 2008. [author's comments]
- D.M. Nelson and Carlota McAllister. Revisiting Guatemala's Harvest of Violence. Duke University Press, 2008.
- D.M. Nelson. "Dispossession and Possession: The Maya, Identi/ties, and "Post" War Guatemala." Identity Conflicts: Can Violence Be Regulated?. Edited by Craig Jenkins and Esther Gottlieb. ( 2007.).
- D.M. Nelson. ""La mujer maya y las identidades heridas: nación, etnicidad, género y prótesis" [The Mayan Woman and Wounded Identities: Nation, Ethnicity, Gender, and Prosthesis]." En el umbral: Explorando Guatemala en el inicio del siglo veintiuno (At the Threshold: Exploring Guatemala in the 21st Century. Edited by Clara Arenas Bianchi. ( 2007.): 377-432.
- D.M. Nelson. Un Dedo en la Llaga: Politicas Corporales en Guatemala Quintocentenario. Guatemala City: Cholsamaj, December, 2006. (Spanish-language version of A Finger in the Wound)