::Research::

I am a scholar of applied anthropology with interests in education, the social constructions of race and ethnicity, language, and Latin American ethnography. I have employed qualitative and ethnographic research methods to study social and cultural issues in several Costa Rican communities and in the Southwestern United States.

My research in anthropology and education and linguistic anthropology of education, as well as past research on medical anthropology has deepened my interest in applied anthropology. My recent book, “I Won’t Stay Indian, I’ll Keep Studying”: Race, Place and Discrimination in a Costa Rican High School, examines the ways in which a secondary public school atmosphere affected the identities of students from a nearby reservation. It addresses issues of language and identity, curriculum, hidden curriculum, the educational experiences of students of color, as well as the intersections of social class, gender, and local conceptualizations of race and ethnicity. While my past research has been based in Latin America, my future scholarly interests lie locally, as the issues of social inequity (both in education and health care) are pertinent to the United States, as well.

My other research projects include the linguistic element of ethnic identity. Fieldwork on this topic in one Costa Rican community resulted in the publication of my book Historias Matambugueñas, a collection of oral histories. My subsequent research addressed the role of informal, unwritten language policy in a school setting.

Additional areas of interest for me have included attention to the effects of tourism on local culture in various rural Costa Rican communities, life history research on the first women voters of Costa Rica, women’s cooperatives and labor in rural Costa Rica, and the role of multinational corporations on local labor, identity, and economy.

::Books and Selected Articles::

2005. I Won't Stay Indian, I'll Keep Studying: Race, Place, And Discrimination in a Costa Rican High School. Colorado University Press, Boulder, CO (Hardcover - December 30, 2005).

2005. “Citizenship, Wealth, and Whiteness in a Costa Rican High School,” International Journal of Educational Research, Policy, and Practice (IJEPRP) 5(4): 119- 146.

2003. “Ellos se comen las heces/eses,” In Linguistic Anthropology of Education.  Stanton Wortham and Betsy Rymes, eds., Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 185-211.

2000. “No Somos Nada: Ethnicity and Three Dominant and Contradictory Indigenist Discourses in Costa Rica,” University of New Mexico Latin American Institute Research Paper Series No. 35, June, 2000. (Archived here).

1999. “The Exportation of Managed Care to Latin America,” New England Journal of Medicine 340 (4), April 8. Co-authored with Howard Waitzkin and Celia Iriart.

1995. Historias Matambugueñas. Editorial de la Universidad Nacional (EUNA); 1. ed edition (1995). Language: Spanish.

<Costa Rica, Photo taken by Karen Stocker>