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Dr. Rodrigo Bulamah

Global South Studies Center

Period of stay: November 2022- January 2023

Research Focus
  • Anthropology and history
  • Human-animal relations
  • Ruins, leftovers, toxicity
  • Colonialism and the plantation
  • Revolution and resistance
Education and Professional Career

I earned my doctorate in Social Anthropology from a dual-degree program between École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). I am currently a São Paulo Foundation (FAPESP) postdoctoral fellow at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) and I work mainly in the Caribbean. My actual research explores the technopolitical and affective life of wood charcoal in Haiti and its connections to regenerative ecological practices. I am also working on a book project that investigates the social history of pigs in the Caribbean and how they participated in creating new counter-plantation futures. In 2023, I will join the Department of Anthropology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) as Associate Professor of Anthropological Theory.

2019 - present

  • Postdoctoral fellow, Carbon landscapes: affects, energy and materiality in the Caribbean,São Paulo Foundation Project (FAPESP), Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp)
  • Research partner, Local Indicators of Climate Change Impacts (LICCI), European Research Council Project (ERC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, LINK

2020-2022

  • Associate researcher, The Colour of Labour: the Racialized Lives of Migrants, European Research Council Project (ERC), Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal, LINK
  • Associate researcher, Reinvenciones de lo Común Working Group, Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)
  • Associate researcher, (In)movilidad en las Américas–Covid-19 Working Group, CLACSO, LINK

2016-2017

  • Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Rice University

2012

  • Visiting Scholar, Haiti Lab, Duke University
Selected Publications

Books

Bulamah, R. C. Ruínas circulares: vida e história no norte do Haiti. Manuscript based on my Ph.D. dissertation. Winner of the 2021 Young Scholars Publication Prize of the Société des Américanistes. Rio de Janeiro: Papéis Selvagens Editora, in press.

Bulamah, R. C., J. V. Goyatá and R. Ramassonte. Rotas Caribenhas: etnografia, mobilidade e conhecimento. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ, in press.

Chapters, entries, and peer review articles

Bulamah, R. C., R. Taddei and K. Shiratori. “Decolonizing the Anthropocene”. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Wiley Online Library, 2022.

Bulamah, R. C. “Plantation animalities: human-animal relations in the early Caribbean”. Revised and submitted to the edited volume Global Plantations in the Modern World (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022).

Bulamah, R. C. “Lòk: pandemics and (im)mobility in Haiti.” Global Perspectives 1 February 2021; 2 (1): 29-39, 2021. LINK

Bulamah, R. C.“Times and Metaphors of Pandemics.” Social Anthropology, 28(2): 232-233, 2020. LINK

Bulamah, R. C.“Pode um porco falar? Doença, sistemas e sacrifício no Caribe.” Horizontes Antropológicos, 26(57): 57-92, 2020. LINK

Bulamah, R. C. “Governing mobility: deportation and the possibility of life in Pequeño Haití, Santo Domingo.” Papeles del CEIC, 1(229): 1-19, 2020. LINK

Bulamah, R. C.“Ancestrais”. In: Federico Neiburg (ed.). Conversas etnográficas haitianas. 1ed. Rio de Janeiro: Papéis Selvagens: 259-286, 2019.

Bulamah, R. C. “Alfred Métraux: between ethnography and applied knowledge.” In: BEEZLEY, William (ed.). Oxford Research Encyclopedias - Latin American History. 1ed. New York: Oxford University Press: pp. 1-31, 2017. LINK

Bulamah, R. C.“Um lugar para os espíritos: os sentidos do movimento desde um povoado haitiano.” Cadernos Pagu, 45: 79-110. LINK