Cultural and Applied Anthropology
Associate Professor
Piccolo 120
336.758.5976
friedeku@wfu.edu
Dr. Karin Friederic is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wake Forest University. Broadly, her research examines how transnational human rights and global health campaigns reconfigure gendered subjectivities, relationships, and ideas of citizenship in Latin America.
Karin Friederic’s book, The Prism of Human Rights: Seeking Justice amid Gender Violence in Rural Ecuador (Rutgers University Press, 2023) documents the effects of human rights on local responses to intimate partner violence on Ecuador’s coast over the last twenty years. She draws on two decades of research and activism to explore two facets of human rights—one, their contribution to the unfinished journey to justice for victims of gender violence, and two, their role in a global cultural project in which “rights” are associated with modernity, development, and democratic states. Using a gendered political economy framework merged with close attention to local subjectivities, The Prism of Human Rights demonstrates that gender violence interventions based exclusively on rights awareness and education are not only inadequate, but also unwittingly insert “liberated” women into larger dynamics of gendered structural violence.
Karin Friederic’s research has been published in diverse venues and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Feminist Review Trust, among others. Karin was also awarded the 2015 Campbell Fellowship for Transformative Research on Women in the Developing World by the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Since coming to Wake Forest University, she has introduced a number of new courses, including Human Rights and Global Justice in Latin America, the Anthropology of Global Health, and Save the World in One Click!, a first year seminar on the ethics of charity and humanitarianism. She also regularly teaches the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course.
Since the year 2000, Karin has also worked with Ecuadorian communities in their efforts to obtain health care services and mobilize against gender violence. In 2003, she co-founded a nonprofit organization, The Minga Foundation, which is dedicated to improving global health through community-led development. Karin joined the Department of Anthropology at Wake Forest University after completing her MA and Ph.D. at the University of Arizona and teaching at Colby College. She received her BA in Anthropology from The Colorado College.
Latest Posts
- Karin Friederic’s New Book – The Prism of Human Rights: Seeking Justice amid Gender Violence in Rural EcuadorAbout This Book Gender violence has been at the forefront of women’s human rights struggles for decades, shaping political movements and NGO and government programs related to women’s empowerment, community development, and public health. Drawing on over twenty years of research and activism in rural Ecuador, Karin Friederic provides an intimate view of what these rights-based … Read more
- Dr. Friederic & students publish co-authored peer-reviewed article in Anthropology Now!Congrats to Jordan Buzzett (Class of ’22, current Wake Forest Fellow) and Gabby Valencia (Class of ’23, WFU Anthro major) on their first major scholarly publication! The story of Arthur, an Ecuadorian dog who was “saved” and “rescued” to Sweden in 2014, has captured the hearts of millions through bestselling books and a major motion … Read more
Global health, development, charity and NGOs; human rights; transnational feminisms; gender, violence, and sexuality; women’s health and reproductive health; disability; health disparities; applied, engaged, and activist anthropology.
Book
Friederic, Karin
2023 The Prism of Human Rights: Seeking Justice amid Gender Violence in Rural Ecuador. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Refereed Journal Articles
Burke, Brian J., John-Ben Soileau, and Karin Friederic
2023 Transnational Solidarity and Quilombo Postcapitalism: Building Alternatives to Development amid Brazilian Racial Hierarchy and Amazonian Extractivism. Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture, and Society. Volume 35:1, 63-87. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2022.2159742
Friederic, Karin, Jordan Buzzett*, and Gabby Valencia* (*WFU undergraduate students)
2022 Saving Stray Dogs: The Global Politics of Aid and Spectacle in the Ecuadorian Jungle.
Anthropology Now 13:3, 16-30, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2021.2087446
Friederic, Karin, and Brian J. Burke
2018 La Revolución Ciudadana and Social Medicine: Undermining Community in the State Provision of Health Care in Ecuador. Special Issue: “Social Inequities and Contemporary Struggles for Collective Health in Latin America.” Global Public Health. Vol. 14 (6-7): 884-898, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2018.1481219
Friederic, Karin
2014 The “SONY Nightclub”: Rural Brothels, Gender Violence, and Development in Coastal Ecuador. Special Issue: Tracing Sexualities and Intimacies in Out-of-the-Way Places. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 79 (5):650-676. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2013.817460
McCullough, Megan, Jan Brunson, and Karin Friederic
2014 Editorial Introduction for Special Issue: Intimacies and Sexualities in Out-of-the-Way Places. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 79 (5):577-584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2013.813057
Friederic, Karin
2014 Violence against Women and the Contradictions of Rights-in-Practice in Rural Ecuador. Special Issue: Violence against Women in Latin America. Latin American Perspectives 41 (1):19-38 DOI: 10.1177/0094582×13492140
Book Chapters
Friederic, Karin and Brian J. Burke
2020 La Revolución Ciudadana and Social Medicine: Undermining Community in the State Provision of Health Care in Ecuador. In: Social Inequities and Contemporary Struggles for Collective Health in Latin America. Eds. Emily E. Vasquez, Amaya G. Perez-Brumer, Richard Parker. London: Routledge. ISBN: 9780367498726. Reprinted from Special Issue of Global Public Health (original date: 2018)
News Articles, Technical Reports And Public Outreach
Mulla, Sameena and Karin Friederic
2017 Rethinking the Anthropology of Gender and Violence in Santa Fe, Co-authored with Sameena Mulla. Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, Volume 27, Number 4.
Friederic, Karin and Adriana Córdova* (*WFU Undergraduate Student)
2016 Gender-Based Violence TIG: Violence, Sexuality, and Remaking Gender in Coastal Ecuador. Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, Volume 26, Number 4.
Friederic, Karin and Bennett Heine* (WFU Undergraduate Student)
2015 Calendario de la Salud: El Subcentro de Salud (Health Information Calendar). El Subcentro de Salud Fundación Minga (USA), Fundación MeHiPro (Ecuador) and Proyecto SaludCom – NOKIA. Quito, Ecuador: Gráficas Paola.
Friederic, Karin
2012 Report: Evaluation of SaludCom Communications Project in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. The Minga Foundation-NOKIA.
Friederic, Karin
2010 How to Help Haiti. The Huffington Post. January 18, 2010. Link
Friederic, Karin
2009 Gender-Based Violence TIG: Local-Global Dimensions of Intimate Partner Violence and Human Rights in NW Ecuador. Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter: 20 (1).
See CV for more detail
REGULARLY-TAUGHT COURSES:
- ANT 114 – Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (offered each semester)
- ANT 360 – Anthropology of Global Health (approx. every 2 years)
- ANT 372 – Global Justice and Human Rights in Latin America (approx. every 2 years)
- FYS 100 – Save the World in One Click!
OTHER COURSES:
- ANT 385 – Special Topics: Gender, Health, and Development
- Women’s Health in Global Perspective
UNIVERSITY SERVICE and INTERDISCIPLINARY ENGAGEMENT
- 2020- Affiliate, Race, Inequality and Policy Initiative (RIPI), WFU
- 2018- Website and Social Media Coordinator, WFU Anthropology
- 2016- Major and Minor Recruitment Committee, WFU Anthropology
- 2016 Major Advisor, WFU Anthropology
- 2013- Steering Committee Member, WFU Latin American and Latino/a Studies
- 2015- Member, Phi Beta Kappa, WFU
- 2014- Affiliate, The Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (CEES), WFU
- 2013-15 Member, Phi Beta Kappa, Members in Course Committee, WFU
- 2013- Undergraduate Lower Division Adviser, WFU
- 2013 Fellow, Center for Community Solutions, WFU
MENTORED STUDENT RESEARCH
Undergraduate Honors Theses (Thesis Committee Chair*)
- Sydney Comstock (2020, Anthropology), Medicalization and Midwifery: Birthing in the United States
- Adriana Cordova (2017, Anthropology), Discourses of Gender, Power and Sexuality in Rural Coastal Ecuador
- Bennett Heine (2016, Anthropology), ‘Aguantamos’: Structure, Agency, and Substandard Housing Among North Carolina Migrant Farmworkers”
- Ansley Fennell (2016, Anthropology), Maya and Aakash: Imagining Agency, Inter-Caste Marriage and Social Change in Nepal
- Anna Grace Tribble (2015, Anthropology), Female Community Health Workers, Health Education, and Tuberculosis in Nepal
- Shoshanna Goldin (2015, Global Health), Infertility and Faith: An Examination of Jewish and Muslim Women’s Perspectives of IVF Policy in Israel
- Lydia Sandy (2014, Anthropology), It’s More Than a Decision: The Roles of Uncertainty, Medical Pluralism, and Family Dynamics in the Decision-Making Processes of Young, Dalit Mothers in a Small Village in Western Nepal
- David Inczauskis (2014, Religion), The Refinement of Liberation Theology: An Analysis of the Dialogue between the Latin Americans and the Vatican
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
- Leah Emery (2019, MA, Psychology), The Course of Remission in Borderline Personality Disorder: The Relationship between Symptoms, Age and Functioning over Time
Mentored Student Publications (authored by students, but with my mentoring and guidance)
- Sydney Comstock (2020, Anthropology), Medicalization and Fear: A Midwifery View of the Phenomenon and the Backlash. The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography, vol. 11 no. 1
- Dami Fakunle (2020, Sociology). The Key to Translation: An Examination of Children’s Human Rights Under Government Care and Protection in Mandeville and Santa Cruz, Jamaica. Forthcoming, Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography.
- Bennett Heine (2016, Anthropology), Sara A. Quandt, and Thomas A. Arcury. ““Aguantamos”: Limits to Latino Migrant Farmworker Agency in North Carolina Labor Camps.” Human Organization 76, no. 3 (2017): 240-250.
Summer Research Fellows & Internships
- Dami Fakunle, 2021, Richter Scholar, “Medical Pluralism in Tibet, China: an Anthropological Perspective”
- Alexander Marshall, 2019, Summer Scholars Program, “Wine Over Time: The Changing Relationship Between Wine Production and Cultural Identity in Nemea, Greece”
- Adriana Córdova, 2016, ACC-IAC Fellowship Recipient, “Perceptions of Healthy Parent-Child Communication in Rural Ecuador”
- Adriana Córdova, 2015, Bagel Fund, “Health Education among Youth in Rural Ecuador”
- Ty Kraniak, 2014, Richter, “Health Communication and Community-Based Healthcare”
- Bennett Heine, 2014, Bagel Fund, “Calendario de la Salud, La Y de La Laguna, Ecuador”
- Araceli Morales, 2014, Richter, “Community-Based Conservation in Mexico”
- Ty Kraniak, 2013, “Hydrating Humanity: Providing Clean Water in Rural Kenya”
- David Inczauskis, 2013, Richter Fellowship, “Helping Honduras Kids: An NGO’s Perspective on Poverty and Orphaned Children”