Andrew Orta
Department Head, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and LAS Global Studies
Contact
-
Office:
Department of Anthropology
109B Davenport Hall
607 S Mathews Ave.
M/C 148
Urbana, IL 61801 - Phone: (217)333-3616
- Email: aorta@illinois.edu
Biography
Andrew Orta (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1996) is a sociocultural anthropologist with research specializations in Bolivia, where he has conducted ethnographic
research with Aymara communities since 1989. His most recent research there focuses on the impact of processes of neoliberal political decentralization on the reproduction of local community institutions and identities. Another recent project examines the internationalization of business curricula in the United States through ethnographic research with MBA students and faculty.
Courses
- ANTH 103 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
- ANTH 182 Latin American Cultures
- ANTH 230 Sociocultural Anthropology
- ANTH 362 Body, Personhood and Culture
- ANTH 399 Capitalism, Culture and the World of Business
- ANTH 430 History of Anthropology
- ANTH 463 Religion and Society
- ANTH 481 Andean Ethnography
- ANTH 502 Ethnicity, Nationalism and the State
- ANTH 515A Cultures of Capitalism
Publications
Books
- Orta, Andrew. Catechizing Culture: Missionaries, Aymara and the “New Evangelization”. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Book Contributions
- "Misioneros y municipios: la inculturación y la descentralización política en el altiplano boliviano." San Juan Diego y la Pachamama: Nuevas vías del catolicismo y de la religiosidad indígena en América Latina. Ed. Alessandro Lupo and Félix Báez-Jorge. Veracruz, MX: Editorial de la Universidad Veracruzana, 2010. 370-422.
- Orta, Andrew. "Dusty signs and roots of faith: the limits of Christian meaning in highlands Bolivia." Christian Ritual and the Limits of Meaning. Ed. Matt Tomlinson and Mathew Engelke. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006. 165-188.
- Orta, Andrew. "From theologies of liberation to theologies of inculturation: Aymara catechists and the second evangelization in highlands Bolivia." Organized religion in the political transformation of Latin America. Ed. Satya R. Pattnayak. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1995. 97-124.
Journal Articles
- Orta, Andrew. "Forged Communities and Vulgar Citizens: Autonomy and its Límites in Semineoliberal Bolivia." Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 18.1 (2013): 108-133.
- Orta, Andrew. "Catechists at the Crossroads: Neo-Catholicism, neoliberalism and the shifting sociopolitical landscape of Aymara life." Politics and Religion 2.2 (2008): 99-120.
- Orta, Andrew. "The promise of particularism and the theology of culture: the limits and lessons of "neo-Boasianism"." American Anthropologist 106.3 (2004): 473-487.
- Bashkow, Ira, Matti Bunzl, Richard Handler, Andrew Orta, and Daniel Rosenblatt. "Introduction." American Anthropologist 106.3 (2004): 433-434.
- Orta, Andrew. "'Living the past another way:' Reinstrumentalized missionary selves in aymara mission fields." Anthropological Quarterly 75.4 (2002): 707-743.
- Orta, Andrew. "Burying the past: Locality, lived history, and death in an aymara ritual of remembrance." Cultural Anthropology 17.4 (2002): 471-511.
- Orta, Andrew. "Remembering the ayllu, remaking the nation: Indigenous scholarship and activism in the Bolivian Andes." Journal of Latin American Anthropology 6.1 (2001): 198-201.
- Orta, Andrew. "Syncretic subjects and body politics: doubleness, personhood, and Aymara catechists." American Ethnologist 26.4 (2000): 864-889.
- "Converting difference: missionaries, metaculture and the politics of locality." Ethnology 37.2 (1998): 165-185.
Other
- Putting “flow” in its place. Invited Comment on Stuart A. Rockefeller, Flow. Current Anthropology. 52(4): 572-573. 2011.
- “Ethnography: South America: Highlands” Handbook of Latin American Studies Volume 65: 138-148. 2010.
- “Ethnography: South America: Highlands” Handbook of Latin American Studies Volume 63: 150-166. 2008.
- Neoliberalism and anti-neoliberalism in Bolivia. Interconnect 14(2):8-9 2007.
- “Ethnography: South America: Highlands” Handbook of Latin American Studies Volume 61: 112-124. 2006.
- Invited Comment on Bronwen Douglas, From invisible Christians to gothic theatre: the romance of the millennial in Melanesian anthropology. Current Anthropology 42(5): 637-8. 2001