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About A. J. Faas

A.J. Faas (PhD, Anthropology, University of South Florida) studies disasters, environmental crises, and displacement and resettlement. He focuses on the anthropology of the state, postcolonialism, cooperation and reciprocity, economic anthropology, organizations and bureaucracy, and the politics of nature, culture, and memory. His most recent book is In the Shadow of Tungurahua: Disaster Politics in Highland Ecuador (Rutgers University Press, 2023), which explores the politics of how disasters are made and contested, cooperation in disaster, and the story of a more-than-human lifeworld in the shadow of a grandmother volcano where the people of Penipe are envisioning new futures according to their own cultural logics of the good.

Positions

Present Assistant Professor, San Jose State University Department of Anthropology
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Curriculum Vitae


Disciplines



Grants

2019 Church Administration of Cooperative Labor in the Ecuadorian Highlands
San José State University
Undergraduate Research Grant
$990
2019 Women's Roles in the Wake of Disaster
San José State University
Undergraduate Research Grant
$990
2018 Cascading Impacts, Community, and Recovery: Resettlement in Ecuador After Ten Years
San José State University
College of Social Sciences Summer Salary Award
$5,000
2018 Cascading Impacts, Community, and Recovery: Resettlement in Ecuador After Ten Years
San José State University
Central RSCA Award
$2,484
2018 Wake of the Flood: Impacts of the 2017 Coyote Creek Disaster
San José State University
Undergraduate Research Grant
$990
2011 Dissertation Fellowship in Hazards, Risk, and Disasters
The Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado and the Public Entity Risk Institute
$10,000
2011 National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant
National Science Foundation
$12,000
2005 Wallerstein Foundation grant for intergenerational learning projects
Center for Community-Based Learning and a network of senior-care facilities
$30,000
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Professional Service and Affiliations

2013 - Present Chair, Risk and Disaster Topical Interest Group (TIG) at the Society for Applied Anthropology
2021 Panelist, American Geological Union, Resilience Position Statement Panel
2021 Present Affiliated Faculty, Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, San José State University
2020 Present Sustaining Fellow, Society for Applied Anthropology
2020 Present Committee Member, Society for Applied Anthropology Risk and Disasters Topical Interest Group Anti-Racism Committee
2019 Present Program Section Editor, Society for Economic Anthropology
2019 Present Consejo de Revisores (Reviewers Council), Íconos – Revista de Ciencias Sociales; FLACSO Ecuador
2017 Present Panelist, National Science Foundation – Cultural Anthropology Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant
2013 Founding Member, Risk and Disaster Topical Interest Group (TIG) at the Society for Applied Anthropology
2005 Member, working group for anthropology graduate and undergraduate curriculum, Montclair State University
2002 - 2005 Member, Community Service Advisory Board, Montclair State University
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Education

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2012 PhD, University of South Florida ‐ Applied Anthropology
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2003 M.A., Montclair State University
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2002 B.A., Montclair State University ‐ Anthropology
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Contact Information

aj.faas@sjsu.edu

Email:


Books (2)

SJSU Author & Artist Celebration (1)

Book Chapters (16)

Peer-Reviewed Publications (26)