Search
Melissa M. Forbis
Assistant Professor

Contact:
2118 Humanities Building
Office Hours:
Monday
11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m.;
Wednesday
12:00 -1:00 p.m.
Melissa M. Forbis
received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Social Anthropology
and an M.A. from Temple University in Visual Anthropology. She is currently working
on her book manuscript, tentatively titled
Engendering Autonomy: Indigenous Women’s Struggles and the State in Mexico
, which examines the Zapatista Army of National Liberation's local autonomy project
in Chiapas, Mexico. The multi-sited ethnography--located in communities in Chiapas,
but attentive to global discourses and economic processes--focuses on local changes
in gender equity and relations of power, and the way that these changes strengthened
the movement's challenge to neoliberal multiculturalism in Mexico. She has published
several book chapters and articles on gender and indigenous rights in Latin America.
Her research interests include transnational feminist theory, race/ethnicity, indigenous
rights, anthropology of the state and nationalism, immigration, and Latin America.
One of her key interests is in theorizing and developing engaged and collaborative
research methodologies. Her teaching includes courses on gender, social movements
and Latin America, and an engaged research seminar and practicum.