(PhD, University of Chicago, 2008; Assistant Professor, SAS) Political anthropology, sociopolitical landscapes, borders, migration, the politics of security and rescue, humanitarianism, the body; North America, United States-Mexico Border, Arizona, the Sonoran Desert  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For additional information, visit www.rociomagana.com

EDUCATION
University of Chicago, Ph.D. in Anthropology, 2008.
Dissertation Title: “Bodies on the Line: Life, Death, and Authority on the Arizona-Mexico Border.”
Dissertation Co-Chairs: John L. Comaroff (University of Chicago) and Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University).

ONGOING RESEARCH
I am currently completing my dissertation-based book, Bodies on the Line: Life, Death, and Authority on the Arizona-Mexico Border, which offers an ethnographic analysis of contemporary struggles over border control, humanitarian intervention, and unauthorized migration in the desert regions of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary.  The book draws on over 30 months of multi-sited field research between 2002 and 2007 focused on the politics and practices surrounding the rescue, death and the recovery of bodies of border-crossers in the Sonoran Desert region.  By tracing the productive tension between efforts aimed at protecting the border from unauthorized migration vs. efforts aimed at protecting unauthorized migrants from the fatal effects of extreme desert exposure, I offer a critical analysis of the political potency that these migrants come to bear through the damage to their bodies and the mobilization of their images and stories.  Though this analysis, my work speaks to the contemporary regimes of exclusion as well as the articulation and contestation of power over people and space.

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS
-University of Michigan, National Center for Institutional Diversity, Visiting Fellowship, Fall and Spring 2011.
-American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Visiting Fellowship, 2008-2009.
-American Anthropological Association, Minority Dissertation Fellowship, 2007-2008.
-Dartmouth College, Cesar E. Chavez Dissertation Fellowship, 2007-2008.
-Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, 2005-2006.
-University of Chicago Leiffer Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2005.

HONORS & AWARDS
-Kurt M. Landgraf Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, 2011.
-Sol Tax Dissertation Prize, University of Chicago, 2009.
-NCID Exemplary Diversity Scholar, University of Michigan, 2008.
-Ignacio Martín-Baró Human Rights Essay Prize, University of Chicago, 2008.
-Society for the Anthropology of North America Student Coordinated Panel Award, 2008.

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

• (Under Review) “On Shifting Ground: The Conundrums of Ethnographic Border Research under Changing Security Policies and Paradigms.” Between the Lines: Border Research Ethics and Methods. A. O’Leary and R. Rubio-Goldstein, eds. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
• 2011     “Deadly Displays of Border Politics.” In Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment. F. Mascia-Less, ed. Routledge.
• 2010    “Rastros en el desierto: la búsqueda de cuerpos de migrantes en el Desierto de Sonora.” Rio Bravo Mediterráneo: Las regiones fronterizas en la época de la globalización. N. Ribas Mateos, ed. Barcelona: Bellaterra. Serie General Universitaria. Pp. 537-548.
• 2008     “Desolation Bound: Enforcing America’s Borders on Migrating Bodies.” 2008 Ignacio Martín-Baró Human Rights Essay Prize, University of Chicago Human Rights Program. http://humanrights.uchicago.edu/awards.shtml.