Jayne Howell

Dr. Howell earned a MA in Applied Anthropology and Ph.D. in Anthropological Sciences at State University at New York (SUNY) Stony Brook. She  initially earned a BS in Anthropology with a minor in Computer Science at SUNY Geneseo.  She began conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the Mexican state of Oaxaca as a student, culminating in her 2023 monograph Women Teachers of Rural Oaxaca: Agency and Empowerment.  She served as President for the  Society for Urban, National and Transnational Anthropology (SUNTA) and Southwestern Anthropological Association (SWAA), and was a board member of the Association for Feminist Anthropology (AFA) and Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA).  She was one of the recipients of 2024 ֦Ƶ President’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Achievement.

applied anthropology, education, employment, ethnography, film, gender, indigenous identity, Mexico, Oaxaca, rural lifeways, tourism, urbanization

ANTH 120: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
ANTH 314: Global Ethnography
ANTH 423: Professional Development in Anthropology
ANTH 432: Peoples of Mexico and Central America
ANTH 458: Ethnographic Methods
ANTH 503: Anthropological Perspectives
ANTH 522: Anthropology of Gender

  • 2023 Women Teachers of Rural Oaxaca: Agency and Empowerment. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  • 2021 "Bringing home la leche: Expanding Teachers’ maternal roles in rural Oaxaca.” Feminist Anthropology 3(1):44-59.
  • 2019 “Housekeeper.” In A Day in the Life of an American Worker: 200 Trades and Professions through History, pp. 679-682. Nancy Quam-Wickham and Ben Elliott, editors. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
  • 2018 “Getting Out to Get Ahead?”: Perspectives on Schooling and Social and Geographic Mobility in Southern Mexico.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 38(2):301-319.
  • 2017 “The Dirt Came Up: Domestic Service and Women’s Agency in Oaxaca City, Mexico.” City and Society 29(3): 383-412.
  • 2017 “Representations of Resistance: Ironic Iconography in a Southern Mexican Social Movement.” In Street Art and Resistance, pp. 277-300. Sarah Awad and Brady Wagoner, editors. London: Palgrave McMillan.
  • 2015 “There’s No Place Like Home?”: Rural ֦Ƶ’ Perspectives on Leaving Home to Study in Oaxaca, Mexico.” Neos 7(2): 6-7.
  • 2012 “Beauty, Beasts, and Burlas: Imagery of Resistance in Southern Mexico.” Latin American Perspectives 39 (3):27-50.
  • 2011 “El Mal Necesario: An Historiography of Tourism, Authenticity and Identity in Late 20th Century Latin America.” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 36(71):249-268.
  • 2009 "’Vocation or Vacation?’: Perspectives on Teachers’ Union Struggles in Southern Mexico.” Anthropology of Work Review XXX(3):87-98.
  • 2006 “Constructions and Commodifications of Isthmus Zapotec Women.” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture Volume 25:1-26.
  • 2004 "Turning Out Good Ethnography, or Talking Out of Turn? Gender, Violence and Confidentiality in Southeastern Mexico.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 33 (3): 323- 352.
  • 2003 "Las Lupes oaxaqueñas: obligaciones familiares y económicas." Desacatos 11:59-76.
  • 2002 “Of Servanthood and Self-Employment: Changing Patterns of Domestic Service in Southern Mexico.” Urban Anthropology 31(3-4):389-422.
  • 2001 "Enseñanza como vocación y profesión para Oaxaqueñas Rurales." Identidades 1(3-4):43-51.
  • 2000 "Me Llamo Lupe: Street Prostitutes in Oaxaca City, Mexico." In Streets, Bedrooms, and Patios: The Ordinariness of Diversity in Urban Oaxaca. Michael Higgins and Tanya Coen. University of Texas Press.
  • 1999 "Expanding Women's Roles in Southern Mexico: Educated, Employed Oaxaqueñas." Journal of Anthropological Research  55 (1):99-127.
  • 1999 "All Paths Lead to the Shelter: Homeless Women in Long Beach, California." Practicing Anthropology 21:28-32
  • 1997 "This Job is Harder than it Looks: Rural Oaxacan Women Explain Why They Became Teachers." Anthropology and Education Quarterly 28(2):251-279