Office Hours:
Wednesdays, 5-7pm, Thursdays, 1:45-2:45pm in 375B Grace Dodge Hall or ZoomTC Affiliations:
Educational Background
Ph.D., Anthropology, Michigan State University, Concentration in Culture, Resources, and Power; Certificate in Latin America and Caribbean Studies and Graduate Specialization in International Development
B.A.. Anthropology, Minor: Philosophy, University of Delaware
Scholarly Interests
Research Areas: Environmental Anthropology; Gender and Development; Indigeneity; Territorial Rights; Conservation, Voluntourism and Sustainability; Social Justice; Climate Change; Environmental Education; Ecological Grief and Resurgence; Applied and Engaged Anthropology; Central America.
My scholarship contributes to basic research, theory, and application in the areas of the anthropology of environment and development, indigenous rights, and gender and social justice. I am the author/editor of 5 books and over 80 articles, chapters, and reviews. My first book, Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance (U Arizona Press, 2013) is an ethnographic account of the relationship between identity politics, neoliberal development policy, gendered activism, and territorial rights in Garifuna communities on the north coast of Honduras. My second monograph,Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration; Life, Death, and Conservation in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, (U Arizona Press, 2021 and winner of the 2022 Ed Bruner Book Prize), is an ethnographic exploration of the world of conservation voluntourism and its engagement with marine and terrestrial biodiversity on the Honduran Bay Island of Utila. My textbooks include Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public, and Critical Readings (Oxford U Press, 2017; 2022), Anthropological Theory for the 21st Century: Thinking with the Canon (U Toronto Press, 2022), a co-edited (w/ L. Bolles, R. Gomberg-Muñoz, and B. Perley), a theory volume for the next generation of aspiring anthropologists and (w/ L. Vivanco), and Culture, Nature, and Sustainability: An Anthropological Introduction, a comprehensive, problem-centered, inclusive, intersectional, and future-oriented overview of the field of environmental anthropology (in press, Wiley Press). My current work is concerned with culturally appropriate environmental education, ecological grief, multispecies relationality, climate-induced changing human-environment relations, and the politics of joy (attending to environmental grief, trauma, and injustice, with a focus on resurgence, healing, and joy).
Selected Publications
Books
Vivanco Luis A. and Keri Vacanti Brondo. Nature, Culture, and Environmental Sustainability: Anthropological Perspectives. Wiley-Blackwell Press. (In press for 2026).
Bolles, Lynn A., Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz, Bernard Perley, and Keri Vacanti Brondo (eds.). Anthropological Theory for the 21st Century: Thinking with the Canon. Toronto University Press. 2022.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration: Life, Death, and Conservation in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. Critical Green Engagement Series. University of Arizona Press. 2021. *Winner of the 2022 Ed Bruner Book Prize, American Anthropological Association’s Council on Heritage and the Anthropology of Tourism Tourism & Finalist for 2023 Society of Economic Anthropology Book Prize.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public, and Critical Readings. Oxford University Press. 2017/2020.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance. University of Arizona Press. 2012.
Sampling of Articles
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. “There is Nothing to Celebrate”: Gender, Communal Land Titling, and the Paradoxes of Indigenous Rights for Honduran Garifuna. In Bernard Perley’s (ed.) Remediating Cartographies of Erasure: Anthropology, Indigenous Epistemologies, and the Global Imaginary. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Pages 125-148. 2025.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Land Grab. Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology. Ed. Lee Baker. New York: Oxford University Press, June 20, 2025. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com. 2025.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Reflections on a Critically-Applied Anthropology of Conservation and Tourism Field School in Honduras’ Bay Islands. Annals of Anthropological Practice. DOI: 10.1111.napa.12232. 2025.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti, Suzanne Kent, Josely Turcios, Kat Robinson, and Alveena Nadeem. Transforming Vulnerability Studies: Local Knowledge and Environmental Education in the Bay Islands, Honduras. Human Organization. 82(2): 95-106. 2023.
Emily, Brunson, Keri Vacanti Brondo, Toni Copeland, Doug Henry, and David Himmelgreen. It’s Not Just Academic: The Importance of Program Development in Applied Anthropology Education. Special Issue: Innovating Applied Anthropology Education. Annals of Anthropological Praxis. 45(1): 57-66. 2021.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Entanglements in Conservation: Utila's Emerging Economy of Affect. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 27(4): 590-627. 2019.
Kent, Suzanne and Keri Vacanti Brondo. “Years Ago the Crabs was so Plenty:” Anthropology’s Role in Ecological Grieving and Conservation Work. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment. 42(2): 16-24. 2019.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Entanglements in Conservation: Utila’s Emerging Economy of Affect. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 27(4): 590-627. 2019.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. “A Dot on a Map”: Gender, Communal Land Titling, and the Paradoxes of Indigenous Rights for Honduran Garifuna. Political and Legal Anthropology. 41(2): 185-200. 2018.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti, Suzanne Kent, and Arleen Hill. "Teaching Collaborative Environmental Anthropology: A Case Study Embedding Engaged Scholarship in Critical Approaches to Voluntourism." In Toni Copeland and Francois Dengah (eds.) "Involve Me and I Learn:" Teaching Anthropology and Research Methods in the Classroom and Beyond. Annals of Anthropological Practice. 40(2): 182-195. 2016..
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. The Spectacle of Saving: Conservation Voluntourism and the New Neoliberal Economy on Utila, Honduras. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 23(10): 1405-1425. 2015.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti and Linda Bennett. Career Subjectivities in American Anthropology: Gender, Practice, and Resistance. American Anthropologist. 114(4): 598-610. 2012.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. When Mestizo Becomes (Like) Indio...or is it Garifuna?: Negotiating Indigeneity and 'Making Place' on Honduras' North Coast. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. 15(1): 171-194. 2011.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Practicing Anthropology in a Time of Crisis: 2009 Year in Review. American Anthropologist 112(2): 208-218. 2010.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. When Mestizo Becomes (Like) Indio…or is it Garifuna?: Negotiating Indigeneity and 'Making Place' on Honduras' North Coast. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 15(1): 171-194. 2010.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti. Garifuna Women’s Land Loss and Activism in Honduras. Journal of International Women’s Studies. 9(1): 99-116. 2007.
Brondo, Keri Vacanti and Laura Woods. Garifuna Land Rights and Ecotourism as Economic Development in Honduras’ Cayos Cochinos Marine Protected Area.” Ecological and Environmental Anthropology 3(1): 2-18. 2007.