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Michelle Bigenho
Charles A. Dana Professor of Anthropology and Africana & Latin American Studies
Department/Office Information
Sociology and Anthropology, Africana and Latin American Studies, Native American StudiesAs a socio-cultural anthropologist, my specializations include indigeneity, law, music, and performance studies in the Andean region. Over the years, my projects have addressed several ethnographic inquiries:
- How do heritage-making projects provide a window through which to view the workings of a decolonizing state?
- What does it mean to labor as a musician in Bolivia?
- What is the value of Andean music in Japan?
- What does it mean to play someone elses music?
- How do people experience music performances as representative of national and Indigenous identities?
Through these questions, my work engages Indigenous politics at intersections with alternative and participatory methodologies, cultural and intellectual property, heritage politics, racialization, performance politics, music globalization, and nationalism. Currently published in two monographs, one co-authored book, and multiple articles and chapters, my research has involved ethnography in Bolivia since 1993, each project engaging local communities in distinct ways. Music performance on the violin has formed an integral part of my ethnographic approach.
My most recent work, in collaboration with Henry Stobart (Music, Royal Holloway University of London), began in 2012 with a National Science Foundation-funded workshop on indigeneity, cultural property, and heritage within the context of Bolivias pro-Indigenous process of change and the implementation of the countrys 2009 Constitution. Following the workshop experience, Stobart and I began a related inquiry titled Beyond Indigenous Heritage Paradoxes in Evo Morales Bolivia, a project for which we received an . The results of this team effort have emerged in several articles and a book, (2025), which was featured in .
To download some of my publications, please see my .
I enjoy bringing my general research questions and practices into my teaching. In several iterations, and most recently in 2024, I offered a course on performing Bolivian music (ALST 204). Always taught in conjunction with a residency of Bolivian musicians from the ensemble M繳sica de Maestros, this course has been featured in The and in this video:
- B.A., University of California, Los Angeles
- Magister, Pontificia Universidad Cat籀lica del Per繳
- M.A., Cornell University
- Ph.D., Cornell University
2024 "La interseccionalidad y el patrimonio: Marcado por el g矇nero, el canto de las mujeres como patrimonio," (H. Stobart co-autor) : 55-79.
2023 (co-author H. Stobart) Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
2022 "'癒Qu矇 me entierran con poncho y sombrero!': Canto, g矇nero, y la constituci籀n moderna," 224-248.
2022 (co-author H. Stobart) International Journal of Heritage Studies 28 (10): 1121-1135.
2018 (with H. Stobart and Richard M繳jica Angulo) Trans-Revista Transcultural de M繳sica/Transcultural Music Review21-22: 1-21.
2018 (with H. Stobart and Richard M繳jica Angulo) Trans-Revista Transcultural de M繳sica/Transcultural Music Review21-22: 1-21.
2018 (co-author, H. Stobart) Trans-Revista Transcultural de M繳sica/Transcultural Music Review21-22: 1-13.
2018 (co-author H. Stobart)Trans-Revista Transcultural de M繳sica/Transcultural Music Review21-22: 1-13.
2018 (co-author H. Stobart) Anthropological Quarterly 91(4):1329-1364.
2016 Love, Protest Dance, Remix, In , Matthew Gutmann and Jeffrey Lesser, eds., Pp. 114-127. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2016 (co-author H. Stobart) International Journal of Cultural Property 23 (2):141-166.
2015 Playing Piano without a Piano in Bolivia, In Ilana Gershon, ed. Pp. 102-113. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
2015 La propiedad intelectual y las ambiguedades del dominio p繳blico: casos de la producci籀n musical y la patrimonializaci籀n, team-authored with Juan Carlos Cordero, Richard M繳jica, Bernardo Rozo, and Henry Stobart) In , Gonzalo Rojas Ortuste, coord. Pp. 131-161. La Paz, Bolivia: CIDES-UMSA.
2015 (co-authored with Henry Stobart) Anthropology News, October.
2014 (co-authored with Henry Stobart) LASA Forum XLV (2): 22-25.
2012 La m繳sica boliviana en la circulaci籀n global: nexos con el Jap籀n, Anales de la Reuni籀n Anual de Etnolog穩a, 2009. Pp. 201-206. La Paz: MUSEF.
2011 Anthropology News, January, 12.
2010 Note from the Editors: Performance, Revolution, Pedagogy: Theatre and its Objects, (with Alberto Guevara), InTensions 4 (fall): 1-12.
2009 Para repensar el mestizaje boliviano a trav矇s del folklore boliviano: la reorganizaci籀n del espacio urbano compartido en la Revoluci籀n de 1952, In Fernanda Wanderley, Coordinadora. Pp. 243-268. La Paz CIDES-UMSA.
2009 Diagonal: Journal of the Center for Iberian and Latin American Music (on-line, UC Riverside). 2: 1-18.
2008 Why Im not an Ethnomusicologist: A View from Anthropology, In , Henry Stobart, ed. Pp. 28-39. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press (Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities, No. 8).
2007 In Indigenous Experience Today, Marisol de la Cadena, Orin Starn, eds. Pp. 247-272. Oxford: Berg.
2006 Journal of Latin American Anthropology 11 (2): 267-293.
2006 Anthropological Quarterly 79 (4): 667-690.
2006 In Culture and Development in a Globalizing World: Geographies, Actors, and Paradigms, Sarah Radcliffe, ed. Pp. 107-125. London and New York: Routledge.
2005 Making Music Safe for the Nation: Folklore Pioneers in Bolivian Indigenism, In , Andrew Canessa, ed. Pp. 60-80.Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
2004 Why They dont All Wax Nostalgic: Comparing Modernities Through Songs from the Bolivian Andes, In Quechua Verbal Artistry: The Inscription of Andean Voices/ Arte expresivo quechua: la inscripci籀n de voces andinas, Guillermo Delgado and John Schechter, eds. Pp. 263-297. Bonn, Germany: Bonn Americanist Studies-BAS/Shaker Verlag.
2001 "Political Economy of Pleasure," co-authored with Bethany Ogdon, Political and Legal Anthropology Review 24 (1): 155-161.
2001 "Propiedad ind穩gena, patrimonio, y la nueva tasa?" In Anales de la Reuni籀n Anual de Etnolog穩a, 2000. Pp. 127-131. La Paz: MUSEF.
2001 "聶Por qu矇 no todos sienten nostalgia? Letras de canciones e interpretaciones en Yura y Toropalca (Potos穩, Bolivia)," In , Gisela Canepa Koch, ed. Pp. 61-92. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cat籀lica del Per繳.
1999 American Ethnologist 26 (4): 957-980.
1998 Political and Legal Anthropology Review 21 (1): 114-122.
1996 "Imaginando lo imaginado: las narrativas de las naciones bolivianas," Revista andina, A簽o 14 (2): 471-507.
1996 "Participaci籀n popular en el centro y sudeste de Potos穩: una visi籀n panor獺mica de las organizaciones territoriales de base, 'OTB's," (con Hu獺scar Jos矇 Caj穩as) Anales de la Reuni籀n Anual de Etnolog穩a, 1995 (tomo II). Pp. 198-206. La Paz: MUSEF.
1993 "El baile de los negritos y la danza de las tijeras: Un manejo de contradicciones," In M繳sica, danzas y m獺scaras en los Andes. Ra繳l Romero, editor. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Cat籀lica del Per繳-Instituto Riva Ag羹ero/Proyecto Preservaci籀n de la M繳sica Tradicional Andina, Pp. 219-251 (2nd ed. 1997).
2018 Dossier especial: M繳sica y patrimonio cultural en Am矇rica Latina, (co-edited with Henry Stobart and Richard M繳jica Angulo) Trans-Revista Transcultural de M繳sica/Transcultural Music Review 21-22.
2010 , co-edited with Alberto Guevara, on-line journal InTensions 4 (fall).
2014 Repensando la creatividad, el reconocimiento, y el patrimonio ind穩gena" bilingual (English/Spanish) website about workshop held in Coroico, Bolivia (2012) (curated with Henry Stobart), funded by National Science Foundation. (The hosting of this website is presently in flux. A link will be reintegrated when the problem is resolved.)
- American Council of Learned Societies Collaborative Research Fellowship (with H. Stobart) 2015-16
- National Science Foundation grant (Co-PI H. Stobart)(Law and Social Sciences), 2012
- Writing Prize for Intimate Distance: Andean Music in Japan. Asia and the Americas Section of the Latin American Studies Association, 2012
- Humanities Institute External Residential Fellowship, University of Connecticut, 2006-07
- Whiting Fellowship, 2003
- University of Cambridge Centre of Latin American Studies Visiting Fellowship, 1998
- Fulbright Hays 12-month Doctoral Dissertation grant, 1994
- Fulbright IIE fixed-sum 10-month grant, 1993
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (American Anthropological Association): appointed board member (mentoring committee) 2022-23; appointed board member 2011-2013; elected board member 2009-2011; elected board member 2001-2003
- Latin American Studies Association, appointed track co-chair for "Otros Saberes and Alternative Methods," 2017
- Latin American Studies Association, appointed track co-chair for "Culture, Power and Political Subjectivities," 2010
- Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Editorial board member, 1998-2018
- InTensions e-journal, Member, editorial collective member of 2009-present
My ethnographic work has involved music performance on the violin with a Bolivian music ensemble called (Rolando Encinas, founder and director). Musicians from this group co-teach with me Performing Bolivian Music, a course featured in the video on this site (ALST 204). Since 1993, I have participated in performances, tours and compact disc recordings with this orchestra, giving concerts throughout Bolivia and also in Colombia, France, and Japan.
- 56勛圖厙, 2014present
- Hampshire College, 19982013
- ANTH 244: Who Owns Culture. This course goes to the heart of debates that motivate my most recent research on cultural heritage.
- ANTH 102 Culture, Diversity, Inequality
- ANTH 211 Investigating Contemporary Cultures
- ANTH 350 Theorizing Contemporary Cultures
- ANTH/ALST 357 Indigenous Politics of Latin America
- ANTH/ALST 365 Andean Lives
- ALST 199 Entangled Intimacies: Introduction to Africana and Latin American Studies
- ALST 410 Capstone: Intellectual and Community Empowerment
- Core 199C Bolivia