David NugentProfessor
Education
- PhD, Columbia University, 1988
Research
Specializations
- Sociocultural anthropology
- Political economics
- Agrarian society
- State and nation building
- Race and ethnicity
- Knowledge and empire
- Symbolism and power
- Latin America
Dr. David Nugent has done field research in the eastern Canadian arctic on Inuit subsistence patterns, in east Africa on government-sponsored sorcery eradication, in the Peruvian Andes on state formation and underground political movements, and in the western U.S. on indigenous land and water rights. His areas of specialization include: political and economic anthropology; race, ethnicity and nationalism; Latin America; agrarian society; and the anthropology of the state.
Dr. Nugent is the award-winning author and editor of several books, including The Encrypted State: Delusion, Denial and Displacement in the Northern Peruvian Andes (Stanford University Press, 2019); Modernity at the Edge of Empire: State, Individual and Nation in the Northern Peruvian Andes, 1885-1935 (Stanford University Press, 1997); Locating Capitalism in Time and Space: Global Restructurings, Politics and Identity (Stanford University Press, 2001); (with Joan Vincent) A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics (Blackwell Press; 2004, a Choice Magazine “Outstanding Academic Title of 2004”); (co-edited with Christopher Krupa) State Theory and Andean Politics: New Approaches to the Study of Rule (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), and (co-edited with Ben Fallaw) State Formation in the Liberal Era: Capitalisms and Claims of Citizenship in Mexico and Peru (University of Arizona Press, 2020). He has also published widely in journals on issues related to the political, economic and historical anthropology of Latin America. Dr. Nugent has two ongoing projects. The first of these is a volume (co-edited with Ben Fallaw) that focuses on the historical development of vernacular sovereignties in post-Independence Latin America. Entitled, ReOrienting Latin American History: Hybrid Border Zones and Vernacular Sovereinties in Pacific-Facing Latin America, the book is currently under review. Dr. Nugent’s second ongoing project is a volume that examines the emergence of alternative forms of democracy and underground, shadow states in twentieth century Peru. Sacropolitics: Group Sacrifice and the State of Redemption in the Northern Peruvian Andes. He completed the volume during the summers of 2022 and 2023, while a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centro Incontri Umani, in Ascona, Switzerland.
