Ieva Jusionyte
Assistant Professor
Areas of Interest/Research
Political and legal anthropology; public anthropology; security; crime and violence; urban infrastructures; emergency management and response systems; borders; governance; the state; news media and journalism; Latin America; U.S.-Mexico border.
Background
I am a cultural anthropologist specializing in political and legal anthropology. My particular interests lie in the ethnographic study of security, emergency response, borders, and governance. From 2008 to 2014 I conducted fieldwork in the so-called “Triple Frontier” region between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. In this alleged haven of international organized crime, which the global media portrays as the hub of drug and human trafficking, contraband, and money laundering, I focused on the lived experiences of local journalists. My book Savage Frontier: Making News and Security on the Argentine Border (University of California Press, 2015; http://savagefrontierbook.com) traces how journalists who live and work in this remote border area selectively report on illegalized, yet legitimate activities, such as food smuggling or informal adoptions. Instead of using the media as a powerful tool for spreading a sense of danger and uncertainty, sensationalizing crime and violence, and creating moral panics, these journalists do the opposite: they use the news to tell particular types of stories in an attempt to make their communities look and ultimately be more secure.
In 2015 I started a new research project on the U.S.-Mexico border: “Emergency Services During Heightened Border Security” (http://www.borderrescueproject.com). Here, I explore the everyday practices and experiences of first responders – firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics – who work or volunteer for fire and rescue departments on both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border in order to expand our understanding of the human and social consequences of security policies and border enforcement. This research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
I believe that, as anthropologists, we should make our knowledge available to broader publics outside the discipline and beyond academia, and that we should use our skills in creative and pragmatic ways to participate and contribute to the communities we study. Therefore, I am a strong advocate of engaged and collaborative ethnographic projects.
At the University of Florida I hold a joint appointment at the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Latin American Studies. I am also the coordinator of the Crime, Law, and Governance in the Americas (CLGA) graduate program and interdisciplinary working group.
Contact Information
Email: ijusionyte@latam.ufl.edu
Phone: (352) 273-4721
Office: 368 GRI
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 3-4pm
Mailing address:
368 Grinter Hall
P.O. Box 115530
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-5530