Krista Van Vleet

Krista Van Vleet is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Bowdoin College. A cultural anthropologist specializing in gender, kinship, and inequality in the Andean highlands, she has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Bolivia (since 1995) and Peru (since 2009). Her research examines moral hierarchies, affective relationships, and social transformation through narrative and visual methodologies.

• Education: PhD in Anthropology (University of Michigan, 1999)
• Research Areas: Indigenous communities, neoliberalism, motherhood, kinship negotiations

Her publications include three monographs: Performing Kinship (2008), Making Families through Adoption (2011, co-authored with Nancy Riley), and Hierarchies of Care (2019). Current research explores personhood and cosmological dimensions in Andean social fragmentation through six intertwined life histories.

Teaching spans cultural anthropology, gender studies, and Latin American research methodologies. Courses include Global Sexualities/Local Desires, Language and Emotion, and Youth in Global Perspective. She employs ethnographic approaches to analyze structural inequalities intersecting with personal experiences in her instruction.