CLAS Post-Doc Jennifer Trowbridge will be teaching a new course for CLAS in the Spring 2022 Semester
“Introduction to Mexico and Central America”
This course will provide students with an advanced introduction to Mexico and Central America, including migrations from these countries to the United States. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this course draws on history and anthropology – particularly medical anthropology – to examine the political conditions that shape social movements and social lives in Mexico and Central America. We will begin with a brief history of the region during Spanish colonialism, and of revolutionary movements that were met with authoritarian, US-backed state violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Mexico (Chiapas) in the late 20th century. We will then turn to contemporary medical anthropology and other ethnographies as a lens through which to explore intersections of race/ethnicity, class, gender and queerness among Mexicans and Central Americans in the region and transnationally. The course will address migrations from Central America and Mexico to the United States, with particular attention to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will examine the Mexico-US “border crisis” as a humanitarian crisis for migrants with severe political, psychological, and medical consequences. Through the course, students will become familiar with social life, social movements, and northward migration among Mexicans and Central Americans, learning from the perspectives of people from those regions.
Keywords: Mexico, Central America, Medical Anthropology, History, migration, social movements, gender, LGBTQ
For more details see our course offerings page.
