Luisa J. Rollins Castillo
Graduate Student
Anthropology, Sociocultural
Contact
Building & Room:
BSB2102
Address:
1007 W. Harrison Street
Email:
About
I am a doctoral candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology with research interests in environmental politics and governance, discourses of nature and environmental change, labor, and social categories of difference (race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender) in Latin America and the Caribbean. My dissertation examines how environmental change and governance are experienced in a particular borderland area along the Dominican-Haitian border. I am especially interested in the types of narratives that emerge and how they intertwine with ongoing processes of nation-state building, development, and social difference-making. This research has been generously supported by UIC’s Abraham Lincoln Fellowship and the Chancellor's Graduate Research Award, as well as the Diversifying Faculty in Illinois (DFI) Fellowship and a CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (DSI) Library Research Award
Selected Grants
CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (CUNY DSI), Archives and Library Research Award, 2017
University of Illinois at Chicago, Abraham Lincoln Graduate Fellowship, 2014-2015
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chancellor's Graduate Research Fellowship, 2011-2012
Selected Publications
Pallares, Amalia, and Luisa J. Rollins Castillo. “Lifestyle Migration and the Marketization of Countries in Latin America.” In New Migration Patterns in the Americas, edited by Feldmann, Bada, and Schütze, 171-199. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Rollins Castillo, Luisa J. “Greening Dispossession: Mining Nature through Ecotourism in the Dominican Southwest.” In The Ecotourism/Extraction Nexus: Political Economies and Rural Realities of (un)Comfortable Bedfellows, edited by Büscher and Davidov, 171-192. London: Routledge, 2013.
Professional Leadership
Biennial Organizing Committee 2018-2019, Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
Organizing Committee 2015-2016, Second City Graduate Anthropology Conference
Anthropology Department Representative 2012, Graduate Student Council, UIC
Secretary 2011-2012, Graduate Anthropology and Geography Association
Education
Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Dissertation: Greening the nation? Environment, labor, and nation-building in the Dominican Republic
Committee Chair: Dr. Molly A. Doane, Associate Professor of Anthropology
M.A., Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2009
M.A., International Business, University of Florida, 2005
B.S., Economics, University of Central Florida, 2004
Selected Presentations
2018 Rollins, Luisa J. “Illegibility, Local Politics, and Ambiguous Practices of Statecraft." American Anthropological Association. San Jose, California. November 14-18.
2018 Rollins, Luisa J. “Precarious Belonging and Nationalism in the Dominican Southwest.” Caribbean Studies Association. La Habana, Cuba. June 4-8.
2017 Rollins, Luisa J. “Guardians, brokers, and smugglers: Negotiating place and meaning in the Dominican frontier.” Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. Antigua, Guatemala. Apr. 6-8.
2015 Rollins, Luisa J. “The Social Landscape of Environmental Conservation in the Dominican Southwest.” Latin American Studies Association. San Juan, PR. May 27-30.
2013 Rollins, Luisa J. “The Reproduction of Nature, Environmental Justice, and the Limits to the ‘Greening’ of Labor.” Grabbing ‘Green’: Questioning the Green Economy conference. University of Toronto, ON, Canada. May 17-19.
2012 Rollins, Luisa J. “‘Greening’ Dispossession: Mining Nature Through Ecotourism in the Dominican Southwest.” European Association of Social Anthropologists conference. Nanterre, France, July 10-13.
2011 Rollins, Luisa J. “Having One’s ‘Nature’ and Eating it Too: The Politics of Development, Ecotourism, and Environmentalism in the Dominican Southwest.”American Anthropological Association. Montreal, QC, Canada. November 16-20.
2011 Rollins, Luisa J. “Ecotourism Development and the Neoliberal State in the Dominican Republic.” Society for Applied Anthropology. Seattle, Washington. March 29-April 3.