I studied anthropology between 1985 and 1996 both as an undergraduate and as a research postgraduate at London School of Economics, obtaining my Ph.d in 1996, after a short spell in 1990 and 1992 when I took a M.A. in linguistics. Since then I have taught anthropology at LSE, Manchester and Durham, and have served as Simon Research Fellow at Manchester, Royal Anthropological Institute Fellow in Urgent Anthropology, and Research Associate at CIDCA. (Centro de Investigaciones y Documentacion de la Costa Atlantica) in Nicaragua. I currently teach anthropology at the Unioversity of East London and am continuing to conduct research among Miskitu and Ulwa speaking people.

Teaching and conducting research in anthropology. Field 4 representative for school and university web pages.

I have conducted nine periods of intensive fieldwork amongst the Miskitu (and more recently Ulwa) of eastern Nicaragua, and have produced publications on economy, ritual, belief, language, political processes, kinship, gender, domestic organisation, subsistence and land rights among these groups. I have also conducted research on counterfeits and reproductions, using these as a key to understand the ways in which we ascribe meaning and value to 'things'. I am currently developing research interests in land rights and the effects of narco-trafficking on the economy of NIcaragua's Mosquito Coast.

B.Sc. in Anthropology

B.Sc. in Anthropology and Native American Studies

AI 1000 Study Skills

AI 1121 The Politics of Sex and Gender

AI 2131 Anthropological Theory

AI 3164 The Anthropology of Lowland South and Central America

Territorial demarcation and indigenous rights in eastern Nicaragua: the case of Kakabila. (2011). In National integration and contested autonomy: the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua (ed.) L. Baracco. New York: Algora Publishing.

A journey into symbolic disorder: Miskitu reactions to Mestizo Catholic ritual in Nicaragua. (2010). In Ethnography 11: 409-424.

(with Neisy Theodore Schwartz) Las fiestas de Santo Domingo como rito subversivo: percepciones miskitas de rituals mestizos en Bluefields y Managua. (2010). In Wani 60: 42-55.

Mother scorpion: women’s politics and affinal relations among the Miskitu and other ‘brideservice societies’. (2010). In History and Anthropology 21: 173-189. 

Bloodman, Manatee Owner and the destruction of the Turtle Book: Ulwa and Miskitu representations of knowledge and economic power. (2010). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16: 31-45.

Máscaras y locura: expresiones rituales de la transición hacia la adultez entre adolescentes miskitos. (2010). In Wani 57: 15-24.

Contracts with satan: relations with ‘spirit owners’ and the economy among the coastal Miskitu of Nicaragua (2009). In Durham Anthropology Journal, 2: 44-53 (on-line). 

Contratos con los dawanka y los procesos productivos entre los miskitos de las comunidades costeras de la RAAS. (2009). In Wani 56: 15-24.

Sorcery, ghostly attack and the presence and absence of shamans among the Ulwa and Miskitu of eastern Nicaragua. (2008). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14: 554-571.

(with Danilo Salamanca). El trabajo de científicos sociales en la CIDCA y en Wani. (2007). In Wani 51: 33-38.

Estilos de habla e idiomas sécretos entre los niños de una comunidad miskita. (2007). In Wani 50, 75-90.

Language and the process of socialisation amongst bilingual children in a Nicaraguan village. (2007). In Durham Anthropology Journal (online).

Compasión, enojo y corazones rotos: ontología y el rol del lenguaje en el lamento miskito (2007). In Wani 49: 6-20.

¿Miskito o criollo? Identidad étnica  y economía moral en una comunidad miskita en Nicaragua. (2007). In Wani 48: 6-24.

In search of the last ‘wild’ Apaches of the Sierra Madre. (2006). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 12: 237-239.

Miskitu or Creole? Ethnic identity and the moral economy in a Nicaraguan Miskitu village. (2003). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9: 201-222.

La reproducción de desigualdades internas y la economía del camarón en una comunidad miskita. (2002). In Wani 31, 30-37.

Ownership of sea shrimp production and perceptions of economic opportunity in a Nicaraguan Miskitu village. (2002). In Ethnology 41: 281-298.

The place of counterfeits  (2001). In Inventory 4(2): 12-25.

Miskitu, Sumo y Tungla: variación lingüística e identidad étnica (2001). In Wani 27: 6-12.

Masks and madness: ritual expressions of the transition to adulthood among Miskitu adolescents  (2001). In Social Anthropology 9: 257-272.

"It's shame that makes men and women enemies": the politics of intimacy among the Miskitu of Kakabila (2000). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6: 311-324.

Compassion, anger and broken hearts: ontology and the role of language in the Miskitu lament  (2000). In The anthropology of love and anger (eds.) J. Overing and A. Passes, pp. 82-96.

El inglés y la variedad de miskito en la cuenca de Pearl Lagoon (1999). In Wani 24: 22-32.

The place of counterfeits in "regimes of value": an anthropological approach (1999). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5: 1-11.

Poverty among Nicaragua's indigenous peoples (1998) – Washington: Inter-American Development Bank.

Linguistic innovation and relationship terminology in Nicaragua's Pearl Lagoon (1998). In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4: 713-730.



Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Member of the American Anthropological Association

Bloodman, Manatee Owner, and the destruction of the Turtle Book: Ulwa and Miskitu representations of knowledge and the moral economy

This article argues that comparative analysis in anthropology is particularly enlightening where contexts under study are most similar. Comparisons of this kind are especially useful in that they allow us to abstract the similarities, focus on the differences, and isolate the reasons for these. To demonstrate this the article considers how the peoples of Karawala and Kakabila, two Miskitu-speaking villages in Nicaragua, represent obscure aspects of processes implicated in the generation of wealth in terms of relations with occult others. In Kakabila, where capitalist penetration is weak and gift-giving remains important, these are represented in terms of relations, both socially reproductive and selfish, with ‘spirit owners’ who mediate access to wealth. In Karawala, where villagers have experienced proletarianization and social fragmentation, these processes find expression in stories of murderous ‘foreigners’ who expropriate blood, and a myth in which an iconic representation of communal responsibility, the Turtle Book, is destroyed.