Marcos Mendoza
Biography | Research | Student Projects | Publications | CV
Office Hours
By appointment
Courses
Anth 101 Introduction to Anthropology
Anth 303 Cultural Anthropology
Anth 360 Political Ecology
Anth 365 Economic Anthropology
Anth 403 Empire & Revolution (cross-listed as Soc 403)
Anth 603 Empire & Revolution (cross-listed as Soc 603)
Anth 606 Seminar in Cultural & Linguistic Anthropology
Anth 621 Readings in Anthropology I
Biography
I’m a sociocultural anthropologist and political ecologist by training. I completed my PhD in Anthropology at the University of Chicago in 2013. At the University of Mississippi, I am a core faculty member in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and Latin American & Caribbean Studies, as well as working closely with the International Studies program and the Honors College.
Research
My research interests include: 1) environmentalism, capitalism, resource politics, and the risk society; 2) organized crime, insecurity, legal culture, and popular mobilization; 3) republican democracy, constituent power, empire, and revolution; 4) aesthetics, tourism, outdoor adventure, and extreme sports; 5) wildfire, refugia, and planetary ecocide. I have ongoing projects in Mexico and Argentina.
My current book project is entitled Guardian Protectors: On Popular Mobilization and Public Insecurity in Mexico. It examines how sociopolitical movements have formed to contest widespread public insecurity deriving from organized crime, state complicity, the war on drugs, and irregular violence. Focusing ethnographically on rural communities from Michoacán state, the book shows how these sociopolitical movements are expressions of constituent power in action. Drawing upon idioms of ‘guardianship,’ these popular mobilizations speak to major challenges confronting contemporary republics in the twenty-first century. Guardian Protectors contributes to debates in political and legal anthropology, sociolegal studies, political theory, and interdisciplinary studies of organized crime.
I also conduct research focused on the green economy, resource politics, and mountain sociality in the Patagonian Andes. Previous research has attended to the productive intersection of conservation, ecotourism, landscape aesthetics, and sustainable development in relation to national politics in Argentina. Ongoing research explores histories of capitalist territorialization, the legal politics of protected areas, mountaineering culture, and the value of glaciers.
Student Projects
I have advised many thesis projects on topics relating to globalization, environmentalism, migration, social movements, ecotourism, water conflicts, multiculturalism, ethnic politics, urban planning, neoliberalism, authoritarianism, insurgency, organized crime, and legal system reform. I am currently accepting MA and BA students for the upcoming academic year.
Selected Publications
The following is a list of selected publications. A full list of publications is found on my cv.
Books & Monographs
The Patagonian Sublime: The Green Economy and Post-Neoliberal Politics
Recent Publications
Marcos Mendoza. 2023. “Territorializing Capital: Moreno’s Gift and the Political Economy of Nature in Argentine Patagonia.” In Tourism and Conservation-Based Development in the Periphery: Lessons from Patagonia for a Rapidly Changing World, Chapter 2, https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-38048-8_2
Mattias Borg Rasmussen and Marcos Mendoza. 2023. “Multiple Territorialities and the Shifting Conservation Frontiers of Patagonia.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 28(4): 320-330. DOI: 10.1111/jlca.12689.
Marcos Mendoza. 2021. “The Tyranny of Narco-Power: Political Rule and Austere Domination in Michoacán, Mexico.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 26(3-4): 408-426.
Marcos Mendoza, Maron Greenleaf, and Eric H. Thomas. 2021. “Green Distributive Politics: Legitimizing Green Capitalism and Environmental Protection in Latin America.” Geoforum 126: 1-12.
Marcos Mendoza. 2020. “Alpine Masculinity: A Gendered Figuration of Capital in the Patagonian Andes.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 39(2): 208-222.
Marcos Mendoza and Emily Warner. 2018. “Financial Media and the Politics of Difference: Argentine Histories of the Greek Debt Crisis, 2010-2015.” Journal of International and Global Studies 10(1): 91-108.
Marcos Mendoza, Robert Fletcher, George Holmes, Laura A. Ogden, and Colombina Schaeffer. 2017. “The Patagonian Imaginary: Natural Resources and Global Capitalism at the Far End of the World.” Journal of Latin American Geography 16(2): 93-116.
Marcos Mendoza. 2017. “Post-Neoliberal Labor in Patagonia: Informality and Citizenship in the Green Economy.” Dialectical Anthropology 41(1): 55-76.
Marcos Mendoza. 2016. “Educational Policing: Park Rangers and the Politics of the Green (E)state in Patagonia.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 21(1): 173-192.
