Karin Friederic is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wake Forest University whose research examines the intersections of human rights, gender, violence, and health in Latin America and Sweden. Her research and teaching interests span medical anthropology, global health, transnational feminism, global inequality, disability studies, and the study of chronic “contested” illnesses.
Her book, The Prism of Human Rights: Seeking Justice amid Gender Violence in Rural Ecuador (Rutgers University Press, 2023), explores how human rights discourses reshape family relations, gender identities, and responses to intimate partner violence on Ecuador’s coast. Drawing on two decades of research and activism, she shows both the possibilities and limits of human rights campaigns in advancing justice, especially in rural contexts.
Friederic’s current projects include: (1) research on queer youth and alternative masculinities in rural Ecuador, and (2) a study of “contested” illnesses such as ME/CFS, health care, and interoception in Sweden, inspired in part by her own experiences with chronic illness.
Since 2000, she has collaborated with Ecuadorian communities to improve access to health care and to mobilize against gender violence. In 2003, she co-founded the Minga Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing global health through community-led development.
She received her BA in Anthropology from Colorado College and her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona before joining the faculty at Wake Forest. In her free time, she loves traveling, mountain biking, and swimming in lakes with her family, and learning and practicing languages for fun.
Latest Posts
- Drs. Clark, Friederic, Gitzen, and Gurstelle Awarded FellowshipsSherri Lawson Clark, Lam Family Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Anthropology Karin Friederic, McCulloch Family Faculty Fellowship Tim Gitzen, Zachary T. Smith Faculty Fellowship Andrew Gurstelle, Shively Family Faculty Fellowship
- 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 […]
- 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 […]
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
Kwiatkowski, Lynn, and Karin Friederic
2024 Introduction to the Gender Violence, Emotion, and the State Symposium. Feminist Anthropology : 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.12143(opens in a new tab)
Friederic, Karin
2024 From Distress to Anger to Shame: Gender Violence, Empowerment, and Emotional States in Ecuador. Feminist Anthropology 00: 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.12141(opens in a new tab)
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
2014Editorial 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)
Friederic, Karin
2015 Gender Violence, Social Change, and Applied Anthropology in Coastal Ecuador. In: Applying Anthropology to Gender-Based Violence: Global Responses, Local Practices. Eds. Jennifer R. Wies and Hillary H. Haldane. Pp. 167-182. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Public Scholarship, Editor-Reviewed News Articles, and Technical Reports
Friederic, Karin
2024 Based on the Incredible True Story: Colonial Minds, Late Capitalist Hearts, and Deception in Hollywood. Anthropology News, April 30, 2024.
Friederic, Karin and Allison Bloom
2024 New Publications in Gender Based Violence (GBV TIG), Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, Volume 35, Issue #1 – February 2024(opens in a new tab).
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
FORTHCOMING
Friederic, Karin and Brian J. Burke
2026 Commoning with and against the State: Lessons from Ecuador’s Deep Periphery. Radical Municipalism: The Politics of the Common and the Democratization of Public Services. Edited by Bertie Rusell and Iolanda Bianchi. Bristol University Press, UK.
Friederic, Karin
2026-7 El Prisma de los Derechos Humanos: En Busca de Justicia ante la Violencia de Género. FLACSO-Ecuador and Abya-Yala. Quito, Ecuador.
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)
- ANT 387 – Ethnographic Research Methods
- FYS 100 – Save the World in One Click!
OTHER COURSES:
- ANT 385 – Special Topics: Gender, Health, and Development
UNIVERSITY SERVICE and INTERDISCIPLINARY ENGAGEMENT
- 2025- Major Advisor, Anthropology
- 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
- 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
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 with my mentoring and guidance)
- Damilola Fakunle (Sociology). The Key to Translation: An Examination of Children’s Human Rights Under Government Care and Protection in Mandeville and Santa Cruz, Jamaica. Vol. 12, No. 2 (2022), Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography.
- Sydney Comstock (Anthropology), Medicalization and Fear: A Midwifery View of the Phenomenon and the Backlash. Vol. 11, No. 1 (2021), 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
- Mia Vazquez, 2024, Richter Scholar, “Island Insights: Navigating. Identity in the Galapagos Archipelago”
- Damilola Fakunle, 2020, Richter Scholar, “NGOs and Children’s Rights in Jamaica”
- 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”