Dr. Keri Brondo Assistant Professor E-mail: kbrondo@memphis.edu Phone: (901) 678-3289 Office: Manning Hall 304

Research Focus

Applied anthropology; gender, development, and indigenous land rights; tourism and natural resource management; women, work and economic justice; consumerism and environmental sustainability; applied qualitative methods; participatory action research; Central America, US.

Academic Summary

Dr. Brondo received her PhD from Michigan State University in 2006.  She is an applied anthropologist engaged in teaching and research in the areas of gender, development and social justice, tourism, natural resource management, consumerism and environmental sustainability, and applied participatory action research and assessment.  She has over ten years of research experience in both urban and rural communities in Central America and the United States.  Dr. Brondo is active in leadership in anthropology, serving as Chair (2006-2007) of the Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, and has worked on two international work climate surveys that explored the gendered dimensions of work as academics and practicing anthropologists; both were sponsored by American Anthropological Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology.  In 2003, she was honored by the National Association of Student Anthropologists for her commitment to public anthropology and service to the profession.

In her research in Central America, Dr. Brondo has explored the organizational mobilization of Mayan domestic workers in Guatemala, identity politics and indigenous mobilization, tourism development, and the gendered impacts of neoliberal agrarian reform in Honduras.  Her research with the afro-indigenous Garifuna community of Honduras focuses on the intersection of gender, development, indigenous rights, and natural resource management.  She spent two years serving as the Senior Social Scientist for Operation Wallacea, a private scientific research expedition organization, in the Cayos Cochinos Marine Protected Area (MPA) of Honduras.  In that role she was responsible for the design and implementation of a multi-year project to assess the socioeconomic impacts of regulations on natural resource extraction, as well as expectations and potential for ecotourism development within five Garifuna communities.  

In the US, Dr. Brondo spent four years training in organizational anthropology, culminating in a post-doctoral research position at Michigan State University with the “Future of Work Project.”  In that role, Dr. Brondo explored sociotechnical systems in a variety of corporate settings.  She spent four years studying lean manufacturing and work culture in a General Motors’ automotive assembly plant in Lansing, Michigan. 

Currently she is developing new research partnerships in the Memphis area in two subject areas: 1) women, work, and economic justice, and, 2) tourism, natural resource management, environmental justice, and sustainable communities.   She hopes that these research partnerships to serve as service-learning sites for participatory action research under the University of Memphis’ engaged scholarship mission.

Recent Publications

Brondo, Keri Vacanti. 2008. La pérdida de la tierra y el activismo de las mujeres garífunas en la costa norte de Honduras. [Online] 9(4): 372-394 (translation reprint)

Brondo, Keri Vacanti. 2007. Land Loss and Activism in Honduras. Journal of International Women’s Studies. [Online] 9(1): 99-116.  Available: http://www.bridgew.edu/SoAS/jiws/Nov07/Garifuna1.pdf.

Brondo, Keri Vacanti and Laura Woods.  “Garifuna Land Rights and Ecotourism as Economic Development in Honduras’ Cayos Cochinos Marine Protected Area.”  Ecological and Environmental Anthropology.  3:1, 2007.  http://eea.anthro.uga.edu/index.php/eea/article/view/25.

Brondo, Keri and Marietta L. Baba.  “Ethnography of Women in US Business.”  Society for the Anthropology of Work, Anthropology News, April 2006.

Brondo, Keri, Marietta Baba, Sengun Yeniyurt, and Janell Townsend.   “Fertile Ground: Homegrown Loyalty Makes for Globally Competitive Industry.”  In EPIC 2005. American Anthropological Association.  University of California Press.  2005:158-166.

Recent Technical Applied Reports

Brondo, Keri Vacanti, Linda Bennett, Harmony Farner, Cindy Martin, and Andrew Mrkva.  2009.  Work Climate, Gender, and the Status of Practicing Anthropologists.  American Anthropological Association. [Online]. Available: http://www.aaanet.org/_cs_upload/resources/departments/28201_1.pdf

Wasson, Christina, Keri Brondo, Barbara LeMaster, Trudy Turner, Maia Cudhea, Kelly Moran, Inez Adams, Andrea McCoy, Megan Ko, Tomoko Matsumoto, and Maria Raviele.  2008.  We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Academic Climate Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology. American Anthropological Association. May 12, 2008. [Online]. Available: http://www.aaanet.org/_cs_upload/resources/departments/17366_1.pdf

Brondo, Keri, Andrew Mrkva, and Katherine Lambert-Pennington. 2008.  Beltline Community Action Process Report.  Submitted to Jacob’s Ladder Community Development Corporation and Beltline Neighborhood Association.  May 19, 2008.

Brondo, Keri and Laura Woods.  “Operation Wallacea Social Science Field Report 2006.”  In Marine Field Research Summary: Cayos Cochinos Marine Site, June-September 2006.  UK: Operation Wallacea LTD, 2007: 7-10. Available: http://www.opwall.com/Library/Honduras/Honduras%20Marine/Cayos%20Cochinos%20-%20Season%20science%20summary%202006.pdf

Brondo, Keri Vacanti and Natalie Bown.  “Economic Structure and Attitudes Towards Conservation in Honduran Coastal Villages.” In Operation Wallaca Science Programme Annual Report, edited by UK: Edited by Timothy Coles, D. Smith, and R. Field. UK: Operation Wallacea. 2007: 99-101. Available: http://www.opwall.com/Library/Operation%20Wallacea%20Science%20Programme%202007.pdf

Awards and Fellowships

Carrie Hunter Tate Award.   National Student Association of Student, American Anthropological Association, 2006.
Fulbright-IIE, Fulbright Foundation, 2002

U.S. Department of Education Title IV Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships (for Spanish and Garifuna), 2002/2002.

Tinker Field Research Grant, Tinker Foundation, 2001.

National Science Foundation Ethnographic Research Training Grant, 2001.

Leadership Positions

Chair, Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2006-2007
Undesignated Seat #4, Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2004-2006

Courses Taught at The University of Memphis