Social and Cultural Anthropology Faculty Members
Social and Cultural Anthropology (PhD, MA)
Core Faculty
Andrej Grubacic, Associate Professor and Interim Department Chair
agrubacic@ciis.edu
Andrej Grubacic is a historical social scientist from Yugoslavia. His interest in anarchism and anarchist social theory influences his research perspective which now includes experiences of self-organization, solidarity, voluntary association, and mutual aid on the world-scale. His focus is on the capitalist world-economy and autonomous geographies of the Cossacks in Russia, Atlantic pirates, American maroons, and Mexican Zapatistas. He is the author of several books. His most recent book publication in English is "Don't Mourn, Balkanize! Essays After Yugoslavia" (2010). Andrej is a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Global Balkans Network. He is associated with Retort, a group of antinomian writers, artists, artisans, and teachers based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mutombo Mpanya, PhD, Professor
(415) 575-6277 | mmpanya@ciis.edu
Mpanya is originally from Zaire. He has worked with international development agencies in several African countries for more than 20 years. This experience has been augmented by extensive work on development in Latin America. He has innovatively explored ecology through interdisciplinary frameworks, linking science, culture, and environment.
His current research includes work on the history and culture of mathematics. He served for several years as Director of the International Environmental Studies Program at World College West in Novato, CA, and as coordinator of private volunteer organizations at the Kellogg Institute of the University of Notre Dame from 1984 through 1989.
He is on the Board of International Development Exchange.
Intellectual interests: postcolonial thought, globalization, health, history of science, management of natural resources, quantitative research; Africa, Latin America.
Hotari A. Touré , PhD, Adjunct Assistant Professor
htoure@ciis.edu
Hotari A. Touré received his doctorate from UC Berkeley in the School of Education in Social and Cultural Studies. His research in anthropology and education reflects a strong emphasis on inner city African-Americans and has resulted in an interest in organic community discourse which he calls “block pedagogy.” He states, “It is a discourse which reflects the constant negotiation of identity, power and privileged knowledge.” His current interests include exploring neighborhood discourse practices of urban youth to produce new and/or alternative knowledge bases to supplement institutional educational lapses; making visible the invisible perch from which Whiteness is rooted; integrating African epistemological and phenomenological approaches into the context of educational research; and contextualizing how hegemony is passed through urban public schools and its effects on the educational trajectories of Black students. Prof. Touré has taught courses at UC Berkeley focused on Gender and Women’s Studies, Transnational Feminism, and Diversity and (In)Equality in Education.
Fouzieyha Towghi , PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor
ftowghi@ciis.edu
Fouzieyha Towghi is a Beatrice Baine Research Scholar at UC Berkeley and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Zurich and the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies. Her dissertation, completed in the joint Anthropology program at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, is currently being reviewed by Duke University Press to be published as Scales of Marginalities: Women, Medicines, and Midwives in Postcolonial Balochistan. The ethnography is informed by an extensive multi-dimensional archive, including interviews with local midwives, women, biomedical practitioners, policymakers and government officials. Prof. Towghi also holds a masters degree in public health from the University of Hawaii and a BA in Anthropology from Michigan State University. She uses her experiences outside the academy to “foster a grounded understanding between theory and practice, particularly as it relates to the textual and visual representations of women’s lives, culture, and marginal subjects in general.” She has taught at the University of Zurich, UC Berkeley, and Harvard University School of Public Health.
