Maria Amelia Viteri

 

The College of Arts and Sciences welcomed Professor Maria Amelia Viteri, our first faculty visitor from USFQ, in August 2019. Viteri taught a graduate course on Languages and Diasporas and an undergraduate course on Migration and Identities. 

 

While at UK, Dr. Viteri was excited to engage in interdisciplinary collaborations and to foster dialogues that engage with southern epistemologies. She also leanred more about UK's policites and programs that protect LGBTQ* students from discrimination.

 

Dr. Viteri holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from American University in Washington D.C., with a concentration on Race, Gender and Social Justice, a M.A. in Gender and Development, and a B.A. in Linguistics. She is currently an Associate Professor and Senior Researcher of Anthropology at Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Dr. Viteri is a cultural and sociolinguistic anthropologist who specializes in gendered, and sexual identities across borders. Her research has run the gamut from granular social impact assessments to ethnographic analysis on how vulnerable communities such as immigrants negotiate their racialized and gendered identities as they move across contexts.  

 

Dr. Viteri's latest research project looks at the political ecologies of violence at the Galapagos Islands. As an Engaged Anthropologist, her research work and publications also inform public policy and the international development field. Her first single-authored book, entitled Desbordes: Translating Racial, Ethnic, Sexual and Gender Identities across the Americas, ethnographically illustrates how migration status, gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity and nationality impact the lives of Latino communities in the U.S.A, El Salvador and Ecuador, particularly LGBT communities (2014, SUNY Press:  New York).