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New Mexico State University

Faculty Anthropology

Christine Eber, Ph.D.

Ph.D., State University of New York, 1991, Associate Professor

 

Dr. Eber is a cultural anthropologist whose areas of research include gender, religion, art, humanistic anthropology, feminist theory, women's studies, and indigenous peoples of Mexico.

  • Office: Breland Hall 314
  • Telephone: 505-646-2448
  • E-Mail Address: ceber@nmsu.edu

Syllabus

 


CURRENT RESEARCH

Dr. Christine Eber is an Associate Professor of Anthropology. She has been conducting research on indigenous women's experiences with social change in highland Chiapas, Mexico since 1984. In particular she has focused on women's experiences in the Zapatista movement, the weaving cooperative movement, and the Liberation Theology movement of the Catholic Church in Chiapas. She is author of Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow (1995) and co-editor with Christine Kovic of Women of Chiapas: Making History in Times of Struggle and Hope (2003). She is currently researching the experiences of women in weaving cooperatives as they forge connections across national boundaries to sell their work through fair trade and to defend their human rights. As part of this work she is assisting Flor de Margarita Pérez Pérez, a weaver and community organizer, to write her life story. Dr. Eber is also working on a book of short stories based on her research in Chiapas.

In addition to research and writing, Dr. Eber is involved in applied work with women's weaving cooperatives in Chiapas. She coordinates The Las Cruces-Chiapas Connection, an organization that assists women's cooperatives to sell their weavings and that educates consumers about the effects of globalization on indigenous artisans. In collaboration with the Las Cruces Chiapas Connection and NMSU's Center for Latin American and Border Studies, Dr. Eber has helped organize many visits over the years of weavers and human rights defenders from Chiapas to NMSU and to communities throughout New Mexico.

Dr. Eber teaches courses on the graduate and undergraduate level focusing on gender, religion, art, and Mesoamerican peoples. She also teaches in the Women's Studies program. She is advisor of the Anthropology Club and co-advisor with Neil Harvey (Government Dept.) of SALAS, the Student Association of Latin American Studies.

In August 2005 Dr. Eber received NMSU's Dennis Darnall Faculty Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to research, service, and teaching. In May 2002 she was recipient of the Governor's Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women.


Recent Publications

2006 "Women and Gender in Mesoamerica." (1st author with Brenda Rosenbaum). In The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American Civilization (revised and updated edition). Robert Carmack, Janine Gasco, Gary Gossen, editors. Pp. 810-875. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

2006 "Reflections on Working with Women's Cooperative Economic Groups in the United States,Mexico and Cameroon. (with Megan Snedden and Meghann Dallin). Practicing Anthropology, Vol 28 (3): 28-33.

2006 "'Are We Standing on a Rock or Sand?': Questioning
Women-Centered Organizing in the United States, Mexico and Cameroon." (third author with Megan Snedden, Meghann Dallin and Irma Castañeda). Practicing Anthropology, Vol 28 (3): 34-38.

2004 “Gender and Mesoamerican Religions.” (with Christine Kovic). In The Encyclopedia of Religion. (2nd edition). Lindsay Jones, editor. New York: Macmillan.

2003 Women of Chiapas: Making History in Times of struggle and Hope (co- editor with Christine Kovic). New York & London: Routledge.

2003 “Living Their Faith in Troubled Times: Two Catholic Women.” In Women of Chiapas: Making History in Times of Struggle and Hope, edited by Christine Eber and Christine Kovic, pp. 113-129. New York & London, Routledge.

2003. “Buscando una nueva vida (searching for a new life): Liberation Through Autonomy in San Pedro Chenalhó, 1970-1998.” In Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous People of Chiapas and the Zapatista Movement, edited by Shannon Mattiace, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, and Jan Rus, pp. 135-159. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland

2003 “The Promise.” Anthropology & Humanism, Vol. 28, Issue no.1: 101-110.

2001. “‘Take my water’: Liberation Through Prohibition in San Pedro Chenalhó, Chiapas.” Special Issue, “Alcohol and Drug Studies at the Millennium.” Social Science and Medicine, Volume 53, Issue #2: 251-262.

2001. “Buscando una nueva vida (searching for a new life): Liberation Through Autonomy in San Pedro Chenalhó, 1970-1998.” Latin American Perspectives, Issue #117, Volume 28, No. 2: 220-247.

2001. “Women and the Democracy Movement in San Pedro Chenalhó.” In The Other Word: Women and Violence in Chiapas, Before and After Acteal, edited by Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, pp. 75-93. The International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs, Copenhagen.

2001. “Obstacles to Women’s Grassroots Development Strategies in Mexico” (with Janet Tanski). The Review of Radical Political Economics 33: 441-460.

2001. “Contemporary Gender Roles in Mesoamerica” (with Robin O’Brian). In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, Vol. 1, Davíd Carrasco, Executive Editor, pp. 432-434. Oxford University Press, New York.

2000 Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow, updated & revised edition with epilogue (1st edition, 1995). University of Texas Press, Austin
2000 ‘That they be in the middle, Lord’: Women, Weaving, and Cultural Survival in San Pedro Chenalhó. In Artisans and Cooperatives: Developing Alternative Trade for the Global Economy, edited by Kimberly Grimes and Lynne Milgram, pp. 45-64. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

1999 “Seeking Our Own Food: Indigenous Women's Power and Autonomy in San Pedró Chenalhó, Chiapas, 1980-1998.” Latin American Perspectives, Issue #106, Volume 26, No. 3, pp. 6-36 .

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