Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera

Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She is also a member of the Latin American Studies Association, American Anthropological Association, and Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social. Her research is published in journals and books such as Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o America. Other publications include reviews of scholarly work. Her academic accomplishments and research pertain to the field of Latina/o transnational migration, indigenous communities in the United States and Mexico, and the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. She is currently working on her first book, Tripping Over Stones: Zapotec Struggles to Define Community, based on previous dissertation and ethnographic research.

Gutiérrez Nájera received her bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles after transferring with an associate degree from Pasadena City College. In 2007 she published an award-winning dissertation and received a joint Ph.D. in Social Work and Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Concurrently, she holds a professional degree in Social Work with a concentration in Health Policy and Evaluation from the University of Michigan.

Gutiérrez Nájera was awarded first place for her dissertation "Yalálag is No Longer Just Yalálag: Circulating Conflict and Contesting Community in a Zapotec Transnational Circuit" at the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education 2009 conference.

Much of Gutiérrez Nájera’s ethnographic research and work is within the frameworks of transnational migration and indigeneity. Gutiérrez Nájera’s focus is on concepts of identity, conflict, and belonging.

Hayandose

In her work, "Hayandose: Zapotec Migrant Expressions of Membership and Belonging," Gutiérrez Nájera conducts ethnographic research in the Los Angeles enclave of migrants from the Zapotec town of Yalálag, Oaxaca. Hayandose refers to the phrase “no se hayaban.” The Yalaltecos use this phrase to explain a feeling of displacement, or of not "belonging neither here nor there." Nájera developed the concept of hayandose to explain cultural practices which did create a sense of belonging, collective identity, and community:

"As Yalaltecos, part of the Oaxacalifornia experience, inhabiting a space that is neither fully Yalálag or Angelinos, reflects the ambiguities they feel about belonging neither here nor there. But through participation in cultural events and practices such as those described in this chapter, Yalaltecos living in Los Angeles create a sense of belonging."

Gutiérrez Nájera contends that the Yalaltec community is a testament to the feeling of belonging, creation of space and community for transnational migrants in which migrants symbolically exist and participate in multiple sites. Other Latin American and Latino Studies scholars that have contributed in the area of indigenous transnational migration include Lynn Stephens, Jonathan Fox, Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, and Robert C. Smith.

Conflict and Migration

Instead of viewing conflict as a finite event, Gutiérrez Nájera describes it as a process in her dissertation "Yalálag is No Longer Just Yalálag: Circulating Conflict and Contesting Community in a Zapotec Transnational Circuit." Using a historical framework, she argues migration and the state play a role in the production of conflict among Yalaltecans. She expands on this understanding of conflict and migration in her essay titled "Transnational Migration, Conflict, and Divergent Ideologies of Progress.” In this piece, she argues conflict and migration are “interrelated parts of broad historical, economic, and political processes" that unfold through the "circulation of people, ideas, and goods." This understanding of transnational migration as part of the process of local conflict offers a new perspective for social workers working with indigenous migrants.

Child Welfare

Her work Latinos and Child Welfare has also influenced the literature and practices of social workers working with children in the Latino community. For example, Gutiérrez Nájera helped identify the unique social service needs and characteristics of this population and has been cited by other scholars to help address these issues.

2012 Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach. Co-edited Anthology with M. Bianet Castellanos and Arturo Aldama. University of Arizona Press, Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies Series.

2010 "Hayandose: Zapotec Migrant Expressions of Membership and Belonging.” Book chapter in Beyond El Barrio: Everyday Life in Latina/o América, Adrian Burgos Jr., Frank Guridy, and Gina Perez (Eds.). New York: New York University Press. pp. 63–80. (Peer Reviewed Volume).

2010 Review of Janitors, Street Vendors, and Activists: The Lives of Mexican Immigrants in Silicon Valley. By Christian Zlolniski, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Migration Letters 7(1): 121-122.

2009 “Transnational Migration, Conflict and Divergent Ideologies of Progress.” Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development 38(2-4):1-34.

2008 Latinos in California. In Latino America: A State by State Encyclopedia. Mark Overmeyer-Velazquez (ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 77–104.

2008 Latinos in West Virginia. In Latino America: A State by State Encyclopedia. Mark Overmeyer-Velazquez (ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 855–865.

2008 Review of Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon. By Lynn Stephen, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology, 13(1): 247-249.

2007 Oaxaca's Social Problem from a Yalalteco Perspective.” Anthropology News. 48(5):64.

2004 “Talking About Race.” In Strategies for Teaching Anthropology, Patricia Rice (ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 28–34.

1997 "Changes in Empowerment: Effects of Participation in a Lay Health Promotion Program.” With Victoria K. Booker, June Grube Robinson, and Bonnie J. Kay. Health Education Quarterly 24(4): 452-464.

1996 Latinos and Child Welfare/Los Latinos y el Bienestar del Niño: Voces de la Comunidad, with R. Ortega and C. Guillean, 1996.

Fox, Jonathan, and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado. “Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States.” La Jolla, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego, 2004.

Smith, Robert C. “Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants.” Berkeley: University of California, 2006.

Stephen, Lynn. “Transborder Lives: Oaxacan Indigenous Migrants in the U.S. and Mexico.” Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.