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 social anthropologist and political ecologist. I received my BA in anthropology and philosophy at the University of Michigan (2001) and my MA in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Chicago (2007). I completed my PhD at the University of Chicago (2013) and joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi. I am a core faculty member in Anthropology and Environmental Studies, as well as working closely with the International Studies program.
Research
My research interests include environmentalism, capitalism, risk society, aesthetics, law and crime, tourism and leisure, political theory, and Latin American studies. I have ongoing projects in Mexico and Argentina.
My current book project is entitled Partisans and Patriots: On Self-Defense, Justice, and Illegitimate Rule in Mexico. It examines how civic movements have formed to contest narco-power, state criminality, and widespread insecurity. Focusing ethnographically on a case study in the Mexican state of Michoacán, the book demonstrates that civic mobilization should be understood as the enactment of constituent power. Drawing on legal discourses of self-defense and justice, such mobilization professes a unique vision of republican political life. At issue is the question of how a civic movement reconciles its partisan character with a vision of republican patriotism that speaks to citizens at large. Though focusing on Mexico, the book highlights how civic mobilizations are responding to changing topographies of authoritarianism, tyranny, and illegitimate rule within global society. The study contributes to debates in legal/political anthropology and political theory.
My second line of research focuses on the politics of the green economy in Argentine Patagonia. Previous research has attended to the productive intersection of conservation, ecotourism, landscape aesthetics, and sustainable development in relation to center-left politics in Argentina. Ongoing research explores histories of capitalist territorialization, rewilding initiatives, the legal politics of protected areas, and mountaineering culture in Patagonia.
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, and organized crime. I am currently accepting both 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 listed on my cv.
Books & Monographs
The Patagonian Sublime: The Green Economy and Post-Neoliberal Politics
Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Marcos Mendoza. 2022. “The Tyranny of Narco-Power: Political Rule and Austere Domination in Michoacán, Mexico.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 27(1). https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jlca.12579
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. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718521002086
Marcos Mendoza. 2020. “Alpine Masculinity: A Gendered Figuration of Capital in the Patagonian Andes.” Bulletin of Latin American Research 39(2): 208-222. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/blar.12839
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. https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/jigs/vol10/iss1/7/
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. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/664389/summary
Marcos Mendoza. 2017. “Post-Neoliberal Labor in Patagonia: Informality and Citizenship in the Green Economy.” Dialectical Anthropology 41(1): 55-76. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9446-9
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. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jlca.12195
