Kiran C. Jayaram, Ph.D.

From one of my proudest achievements, biking from Santo Domingo to Haiti (2008).

BIOGRAPHICAL BLURB:  I am an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. My life has been a study in crossing borders.  For example, I was born in Kansas City, Missouri but brought home and raised in Kansas. A child of rural elite migrants, I learned to appreciate eating rice and yogurt (a South Indian dish) as much as riding go-carts (a rural Kansan wish). At different stages, I attended both private and public elementary schools, Jesuit and public high schools, and Ivy League universities and a public community college. I have conducted research in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in the US and abroad.

RESEARCH AND TEACHING OVERVIEW:  I am interested in the anthropology of political economy, education, and mobility within Caribbean and the rest of the Americas.  As of 2021, I am exploring avenues for a research program in south India (Karnataka and Tamil Nadu border area).

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SERVICE:  Since 2019, I have been working on the project of Island Anthropologies, a project initially funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation that considers the past, present, and future of anthropologies on Hispaniola.  Since 2018, I have been on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology.  From 2013-2017, I worked with the Université d’Etat d’Haïti to help establish a doctoral program in the Department of Anthropology with funds from a Wenner-Gren Foundation Institutional Development Grant.  Previously, I was the Coordinator of the Transnational Hispaniola Working Group (Caribbean Studies Association, (2016-2018), the Program Chair for the Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (2015-2017), and a former Co-Chair for the Haiti-Dominican Republic Section of the Latin American Studies Association (2010-2016). In 2010, I co-founded Transnational Hispaniola with Prof. April J. Mayes.