Dr. Mieka Brand Polanco
Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies

Teaching:
Cultural Anthropology, History of Anthropological Thought, Space Culture and Power, Peoples and Cultures of the Black Atlantic

Research:
Mieka Brand Polanco is a cultural anthropologist specializing in African-American studies with a focus on the intersection of race, history, and space.  Dr. Polanco is interested in the ways people negotiate racial identities through their relationships to history and to the landscape.  Her research considers the power and politics that help shape these relationships.  Dr. Polanco’s teaching and research interests include the African Diaspora, race and the politics of racial identity, social space, human geography, history production, and community studies.

Education:
M.A., Ph. D. University of Virginia
B.A. New York Univeristy

Recent Publications:
2008. Guest Editor (with Heather Horst), special issue of Home Cultures 5(1).

2008. “Gating Union: The Politics of Making a Historically Black Community.”  Home Cultures 5(1):27-48.

2007. “Making Moonshine: Thick Histories in a U.S. Historically Black Community.”  Anthropology and Humanism 32(1):52-61.