March 11, 2015—A book authored by Professor Lynn Stephen, director, UO Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies, has been named the recipient of the 2015 Delmos Jones and Jagna Scharff Memorial Book Award from the Society for the Anthropology of North America. We are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements (Duke University Press, October 2013) tells the story of a massive uprising against the Mexican state of Oaxaca, which began with the emergence of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) in June 2006. The idea for the book arose from a trip Stephen took in 2006 to Oaxaca, Mexico, with a research team from the CSWS Américas Research Interest Group made up of UO students and faculty. They arrived in the midst of a social uprising in Oaxaca that turned out to be one of the most significant social movements in recent memory in contemporary Mexico.
Dr. Stephen is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology. In announcing the award, the selections committee stated:
“We were particularly impressed with the innovative way you approached the social movements that began in Oaxaca with the teachers’ strike in 2006, utilizing the testimonials of your collaborators and also focusing on the important role of women. This is an ethnography that emphasizes context and the fine-grained details of specific events along with the voices of men and women who were there. We also want to emphasize your use of a website providing video clips and the full-length testimonials, giving full-authorship to your collaborators. In awarding the prize to you and your collaborators, we want to highlight the way this book serves as a model for the kind of collaboration that should characterize an anthropology that is engaged with critical social issues.”
The goal of the Society for the Anthropology of North America is to address the need for a focused voice and institutional presence for the Anthropology of the United States, Canada and Mexico.
