Geographical Areas of Specialization: Caribbean,
Latin America, North America, and Belize
Topical Interests: Economic,
Applied and Cultural Anthropology
Current Courses: on leave
Profile:
I am passionately interested in social theory as a means of making
connections between fields and problems at different scales, making
sense of applied problems and public issues, and informing research
design and methodology. Theory is the thread that ties together
work which might otherwise seem an odd juxtaposition; modern beauty
pageants and the spread of ancient Olmec society, the shortcomings
of rational choice theory and the history of Belizean cuisine, or
moral talk about television and the global branding of bottled water.
My work relates to and connects with topics like Development, Political
Economy, and Globalization; History, Narrative, and Power; Gender
and Sexuality.
I find nothing antithetical about doing both strongly scientific
research and critical and interpretive anthropology. I have always
worked hard to combat the polarizing discourse that has had a regrettable
affect on our discipline. I continue to feel strongly that the combination
of different approaches to understanding human experience is the
greatest strength of anthropology.
Teaching has always been an essential part of my intellectual life.
I have been teaching at least one new course a year for as long
as I can remember. Teaching fundamental undergraduate courses keeps
me constantly thinking of new ways to connect anthropological knowledge
and theory to the kinds of issues and topics that make students
want to learn. I have been teaching introductory anthropology steadily
for almost 20 years, and I enjoy my undergraduate courses on consumer
culture, Mesoamerica and gender. I have taught our core theory graduate
proseminar, which has over the years produced an award-winning website
on anthropological theory.
My teaching philosophy has been changing rapidly in the last few
years, due to my involvement in service learning and in alternatives
to the lecture format in large classes. I still believe strongly
that the lecture has an important role in the classroom, but I have
also had great success with alternative formats. The last time I
taught my development anthropology course, the class did an applied
research project along with a local social service agency; this
was by far the most rewarding teaching experience I have ever had,
and the students were equally engaged.
I see three main themes developing in my next five years of work.
First, I will develop a field research project in the United States
on food tastes and preferences and family dynamics; I expect to
prepare a major research grant proposal in the year 2005-6. Second,
I will extend my policy-related work with European collaborators
as part of the research agenda now defined as “sustainable
consumption.” Finally, after I complete publication of my
research on the ethnography and history of food in Belize, I will
begin a book on the globalization of masculinity in the nineteenth
century (a paper outlining part of this project is available online
at http://www.humecol.lu.se/woshglec).
Finally, this summer I expect to visit Central Asia for the first
time, to explore the possibility of starting a new field project
in Kyrgyzstan.
For more Information on Dr. Wilk, visit his personal
website.
Selected Publications:
| 2004 |
"Miss Universe, the Olmec, and the Valley of Oaxca."
Journal of Social Archaeology 4 (1): 81-98. |
| 2004 |
"Poems on the theme of 'Gleaning', and 12 photographs
of recycled consumer culture in West Africa." Consumption,
Markets, Culture 6(3): 183-205. |
| 2004 |
"The Binge in the Food Economy of Nineteenth-Century
Belize." In Changing Tastes: Food Culture and the Processes
of Industrialization, edited by Patricia Lysaght. Basel:
Verlag der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft fur Volkskunde. Pp.
110-120. |
| 2004 |
"Morals and Metaphores: The Meaning of Consumption."
In Elusive Consumption, edited by Karin Ekstrom and Helene Brembeck.
Berg Publishers. Pp. 11-26. |
| 2003 |
"Colonial Time and TV Time: Television and Temporality
in Belize." In Television: Critical Concepts, edited by
Toby Miller. Routledge. Pp. 418-430. (reprint) |
| 2002 |
"When Good THeories Go Bad: Theory in Economic Anthropology
and Consumer Research." In Theory in Economic Anthropology,
edited by Jean Ensminger, Altamira Press: Walnut Creek. Pp.
239-250. |
| 2002 |
"Television, Time, and the National Imaginary in Belize."
In Media Worlds, edited by Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and
Brian Larkin, University of California Press: Berkeley. Pp.
171-186 |
| 2002 |
(Kelly Askew and Richard Wilk) The Anthropology of Media:
A Reader. Blackwell |
| 1998 |
(with Priscilla Stone) A Very Human Ecology: Special Issue
of Human Ecology in Memory of Robert. M. Netting. Human Ecology
26 (2) |
| 1996 |
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology.
Westview Press. |
| 1995 |
Colleen Cohen, Richard Wilk and Beverly Stoeltje "Beauty
on the Global Stage: Pageants and Power". Routledge. |
| 1991 |
Household Ecology: Economic Change and Domestic Life among
the Kekchi Maya of Belize. Arizona Studies in Human Ecology,
University of Arizona Press. (Paperback edition by Northern
Illinois University Press in 1997). |
| 1990 |
(with Mac Chapin) "Ethnic Minorities in Belize: Mopan,
Kekchi and Garifuna." Monograph No. 1, Society for the
Promotion of Education and Research, Belize City. |
| 1989 |
The Household Economy: Reconsidering the Domestic Mode
of Production. Boulder: Westview Press. |
