Anthropologist to Discuss His Work in Nicaragua Feb. 5

Baron Pineda, a cultural anthropologist specializing in human rights, indigenous peoples and Latin America, will speak about his work in Nicaragua at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, in room 242 of Schroeder Hall at Illinois State University.

Admission is free and open to the public. 

Pineda, a faculty member at Oberlin College, is the author of “Shipwreck Identities: Navigating Race on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast,” published in 2006 by Rutgers University Press.  His lecture is sponsored by the Latin American and Latina/o Studies Program in cooperation with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Office of International Studies and Program. 

Since 2002, he has been conducting field research on global indigenous politics at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.   He will give a free public on that research at noon Wednesday, Feb. 6, in the third floor east lounge of Bone Student Center.  It is part of the International Studies Seminar Series organized by the Unit for International Linkages, International Studies and Programs,Women and Gender Studies, and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program. A free pizza lunch will be served.

Pineda received his training in Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley and the University of Chicago. His areas of special interest include race and ethnicity, the politics of culture, and Latin American history, linguistics, environmental issues, human rights and urban America.

He conducted field research in the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua among the Miskito Indians, Creoles and Mestizos of the region. He has presented papers on these themes at conferences both in Nicaragua and the United States and has articles appearing in the Journal of Latin American Anthropology, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal and the Journal of Asian American Studies."

The next International Studies Seminar Series lecture, at noon Feb. 6, will be by Fareed Armaly, artistic director of Kunstlerhaus Stuttgart in Germany.  He is a Research Fellow at ZKM (Center for Art and Medium Technology) in Karlsruhe, Germany.