Hampshire College

Michelle Bigenho, associate professor of anthropology and Latin American studies, holds a B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles in political science and Latin American studies; a "magister" in anthropology from the Pontifícia Universidad Católica del Perú; and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Cornell University.

Her work examines the cultural politics of Bolivian music performances as they relate to nationalism, discourses of authenticity, indigenous issues, folklorization, patrimony, and globalization. She has received Fulbright IIE, Fulbright-Hays, and Whiting Foundation grants as well as fellowships from University of Cambridge’s Centre of Latin American Studies and University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute.

She is the author of Sounding Indigenous: Authenticity in Bolivian Music Performance (Palgrave 2002). She has chapters in several edited volumes and articles published in American Ethnologist, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Anthropological Quarterly, and Journal of Latin American Anthropology.

She is currently working on a second book manuscript titled Intimate Distance: The Intercultural Nexus of Bolivian Music in Japan. Music performance on the violin has formed a significant part of her research approach in both Peru and Bolivia, and she has participated in eleven recordings with the Bolivian ensemble, Música de Maestros.

Affiliations
School of Critical Social Inquiry

Recent Courses
CSI-0110: Life Stories from Latin America (Fall 2012)
CSI-0266: Who Owns Culture? (Fall 2012)
CSI-0103: Performance and Ethnography (Spring 2012)
CSI-0211: Latin American Social Movements (Spring 2012)