Introduction
Teaching Interests
Research Interests
Educational Background

Beth Baker-Cristales
Assistant Professor

Office: King Hall C4036
Phone: (323)343-2443
FAX: (323)343-2446
Email: bbakerc@calstatela.edu

INTRODUCTION

I joined the anthropology deparment at CSULA in 2002. My area of specialization is the cultural anthropology of Latin America and I have done fieldwork in Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, and Los Angeles. Most recently, I studied Salvadoran migration to the United States, publishing Salvadoran Migration to Southern California: Redefining El Hermano Lejano (University Press of Florida, 2004). I am interested in the study of globalization and transnationalism, states and nationalism, ethnicity, gender, political anthropology, urban anthropology, and applied anthropology. I continue to do research in the Los Angeles area on Latin American hometown associations and economic development and ethnic identity and ethnic relations.

TEACHING INTERESTS

In all my classes, I aim to engage students in fieldwork and active research and applied work. I seek to foster critical thinking and writing skills and exposure to a broad range of scholarship in anthropology and related disciplines. I teach many classes for the Department of Anthropology, including the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Gender Roles in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Globalization and Cultural Change, Social Organization, Peasant Cultures of Middle-America, Peoples of South America, Urban Anthropology, and the Graduate Seminars in Anthropological Theory.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

In general, I am interested in the globalization, transnationalism, nationalism and the state, economic development, work and labor rights, gender and sexuality, ethnicity and ethnic relations, political identity, and urban space. I am currently engaged in research on the transnationalization of Salvadoran politics through migration, female participation in Latin American hometown associations, and ethnic identity and ethnic relations in Los Angeles.

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

Ph.D. Anthropology 1999
University of New Mexico