Department of Society, Culture, Crime, and Justice Studies

ANTH 120 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

ANTH 360 Applied Anthropology: Addressing Contemporary Human Problems

ANTH/FLK 388 Foodways

My research interests include child welfare, immigration, and Latinx studies, as well as citizenship and the anthropology of law. My most recent work has explored the experiences of undocumented Latinx parents with open child welfare cases who must navigate a complex transnational bureaucracy to obtain custody of their children post-deportation. In addition to my academic work, I am currently engaged in local advocacy work with a volunteer organization that I co-founded called Indiana AID (Assistance to Immigrants in Detention), which provides material and emotional support to immigrants under ICE hold in the Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana. I am currently a mentor for the American Anthropological Association Op-Ed project.

Valenzuela, Robin. 2021. “Interstitial Precarity: The Romance and Tragedy of the Transnational Child Welfare System.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12468

Valenzuela, Robin. 2021. “Audit Culture, Accountability, and Care: A Phenomenological Anthropology of Child Welfare.” Qualitative Social Work 20(6):1477-1495, https://doi.org/10.1177/14733250211039512.

Valenzuela, Robin. 2016. “The Nashville John School: Affective Governance and the Reintegrative Shaming Approach.” Human Organization 75(3): 249-257.