Office: Maxey 120B, 509.527.5996, straina@whitman.edu

Education: Ph.D. 2003 University of California, Berkeley, Geography; A.M. 1993 Stanford University, Latin American Studies; B.A. 1992 Macalester College, International Studies

Curriculum Vitae (pdf document)

Major Interests:

• The politics of development in Latin America

• The politics and political economy of agrarian capitalism

• Histories and theories of Third World development

• Critical human geography: space, place, and power

• Political Ecology / Nature-Society relations

• The politics of food

Courses:

Pol 119. Whitman in the Global Food System
Pol 242. Politics of Development in Latin America
Pol 283. Histories and Theories of Development
Pol 332. Politics of Place
Pol 335. Cultural Politics of Development in Latin America
Pol 363. Genealogies of Political Economy
Pol 373. Political Ecology of Latin America

Research:
My research spans three different projects, drawing together political economy, cultural studies, and critical human geography to explore the workings of power in contexts of capitalist development.

• Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Hegemony, and the Spaces of Agrarian Violence in Chiapas, Mexico

• On the Way to Modern Mexico: Roads, Mobility, and Power—a Political Chorography

• Since Sliced Bread: Culture, Purity, and Power in the Story of America’s ‘Best’ Invention

Academic Publications:

BOOK
Forthcoming in June 2007 from Duke University Press:
Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Power, and Violence in Chiapas


BOOK CHAPTERS
2001. “Between a Ranch and a Hard Place: Violence, Scarcity, and Meaning in Chiapas, Mexico.” in Peluso, Nancy Lee and Michael Watts eds. Violent Environments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.


PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
2005. “Articulations of Rule: Landowners, Revolution, and Territory in Chiapas, Mexico (1930-1962).” Journal of Historical Geography. 31(4) 744-762.
2004.

2004. “(Dis)accords: Land Invasions, Agrarian Accords, and the Politics of Market-Assisted Land Reform in Chiapas, Mexico.” World Development. v32 i6 (pp. 887-903).


BOOK REVIEWS
2003. Review of S. McCook. States of Nature: Science, Agriculture, and Environment in the Spanish Caribbean, 1760-1940. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 21(5) 629-630.


WORKS UNDER REVIEW / IN PROGRESS

“Kills a Body Twelve Ways: Bread Fear and the Ethics of “What to Eat?” Submitted to Gastronomica.

“Since Sliced Bread: Science, Culture, and Anxiety in the Making of Modern Bread.” Submitted to Cultural Geographies.

“Liquid Fincas: Land, Commerce, and Liquor in North-Central Chiapas (1820-1950).” A completed chapter for a proposed book on 19th-century Chiapas edited by Jan Rus and Steven Lewis.

“Blood Alcohol:  Race, Drinking, and Development in Post-Colonial Chiapas.” Article to be submitted to the Journal of Agrarian Change.

“All the Movements of Our Nature: Genealogies of Mobility and Modern Power”  In progress.