Biography

ALEJANDRO LUGO received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University in 1995, his M.A. in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1988, and his B.A. in anthropology from New Mexico State University in 1985. Prof. Lugo has taught at Bryn Mawr College (Spring 1992), at the University of Texas at El Paso (1992-1993 to 1994-1995), and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has been teaching anthropology and Latino Studies since the fall of 1995. From 2006-2007 to 2009-2010, Prof. Lugo served as Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Head of the Department of Anthropology.
          Professor Lugo is the author of Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism, and Conquest at the U.S.-Mexico Border (University of Texas Press, 2008), which has received two national book awards. He is also co-editor (with Bill Maurer) of the 2000 volume Gender Matters: Rereading Michelle Rosaldo  (University of Michigan Press) and editor of the 2012 special publication, “Engaging and Celebrating Renato Rosaldo’s Culture and Truth” in Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies.  In addition to having served from Spring 2010 to Fall 2011 as Associate Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Latino Studies, he also served in the Editorial Boards of the journals Reviews in Anthropology from 2003 to 2005 and Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies from 2006 to 2008.

Specializations / Research Interest(s)

• Research Topics: Culture, History, and Power; Border Studies; Anthropology of Borderlands; Anthropology of Gender; Capitalism and Transnationalism; Culture and Globalization; Class and Culture; Colonial and Post-Colonial Cultures; Anthropology of Work; History of Anthropological Theory; Culture and Border Theory; Feminist Theory; Popular Culture; Race and Racism; Latina/o Studies, Chicana/o Studies; Ethnic Studies.
• Geographic Research Area: Mexico; U.S.-Mexico Borderlands; American Southwest; U.S. Latino Communities; Latin America and the Caribbean.

Research Description

• Prof. Lugo’s research and writing have focused on the study of culture, power, and identity in the labor lives of working-class peoples (particularly maquiladora workers) in the context of late industrial capitalism as well as in the social lives of ethnic and racial minorities in the context of empire, including the Spanish and the American empires.  Throughout his professional career, he has maintained a broad theoretical interest in bridging the study of culture and meaning with political economy, history, and lived experience.  His main strategy in accomplishing this goal has been to conduct ethnographic work on how people’s differences in terms of class, gender, and color hierarchies manifest themselves in society and in everyday lives.  Ethnographically, Prof. Lugo has addressed these concerns through anthropological research conducted over the last two decades on the lives of working-class people at the U.S.-Mexico border.  Most recently,
  Prof. Lugo’s research has focused on the historical formation of Mexican communities in southern New Mexico from the mid-19th century to the present.  He has augmented ethnography with investigations of the historical and social science literatures about Mexicans and other Latinos/as in the United States (in the American Southwest and the Midwest and beyond).  Methodologically, Prof. Lugo has used structured and unstructured interviews, participant observation, life histories, and archival research of government population records (both colonial and modern) and newspapers.  With regard to the subfield of socio-cultural anthropology, Prof. Lugo’s research and writing projects contribute to the anthropology of capitalism (work, class and culture), the anthropology of borderlands and colonialism/postcolonialism, the anthropology of Mexico and transnational Mexicans, and the anthropology of gender and feminism.

Education

• Ph.D., Stanford University, 1995
• M.A., University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1988
• B.A., New Mexico State University, 1985

Distinctions / Awards

• 2009 Larine Y. Cowan “Make a Difference Award” for demonstrating “exceptional dedication to and success in promoting diversity and inclusivity through teaching, research, hiring practices, courses, programs, and events”. This campus-wide award was presented on November 11, 2009 and is given annually by the Office of Equity and Access at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• 2009 selection of 1990 article, “Cultural Production and Reproduction in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico: Tropes at Play among Maquiladora Workers (Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 3(4): 455-487), as part of the journal’s online compilation: “Cities and Urbanism: 20 Years of Cultural Anthropology in the City”
• 2009 selection of Prof. Lugo’s photos. The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the best museum of Mexican art and culture in the nation, selected two ethnographic photographs from his photography series, “Cruces: Crossings and Crosses”, for the Permanent Collection. According to the Permanent Collection Curator, the photographs “add very poignant documentation of the horrible atrocities against Mexican women along the US-Mexico border…the committee chose the two compositionally best and historically important photographs that capture the ‘before and after’ shrine created in memory of these girls and women” (see letter dated June 19, 2009).
• 2009 ALLA Book Award for Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism, and Conquest, given by the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists of the American Anthropological Association, on December 4, 2009 for the book’s “contribution to Latina/o anthropology and our communities as a whole” as well as for being “a significant scholarly contribution to our discipline”.
• 2008 Southwest Book Award for Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism, and Conquest, awarded by the Border Regional Library Association, on February 28, 2009, for literary excellence and for “Enrichment of the Cultural Heritage of the Southwest.”
• 2002 Outstanding Educator Award, given by Latino Formal Committee at the University of Illinois, February 23, 2002.
• Plaque for Excellence in Teaching and for Contributing to the Latina/o Community of the University of Illinois. Given by the Class of 1997 at the Latina/o Congratulatory Ceremony. May 1996.
• Certificates of Recognition for making the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students at the University of Illinois: for Fall 1995 (Anthro 450), Fall 1996 (Anthro 398), for Spring 2000 (Anthro 463), for Spring 2002 (Anth 450), for Fall 2004 (Anth 259), for Spring 2005 (Anth 499), for Spring 2006 (Anth 472), for Fall 2006 (Anth 508), for Spring 2007 (Anth 250), Fall 2008 (Anth 504), Fall 2009 (Anth 499), and for Spring 2011 (Anth 472/LLS496).