Christian Espinosa Schatz (Yale University), “The Transnationalization of Mayan Agriculture” (Agrarian Studies Colloquium)

Christian Espinosa Schatz, Ph.D. candidate in the combined program in Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Yale, will present the next Agrarian Studies paper of the Spring 2025 semester. For these seminars, participants send papers in advance that are the focus of an organized discussion by the faculty and graduate students associated with the colloquium. Meetings are held in a hybrid format, both on Zoom and in-person at 230 Prospect Street, Room 101, on Fridays 11am–1pm Eastern. Please contact agrarian.studies@yale.edu to receive the meeting information and the password to download the paper from the Agrarian Studies website.

 

Christian Espinosa Schatz is a Ph.D. candidate in the combined program in Anthropology and Environmental Studies at Yale. His research engages with the fields of environmental anthropology, human geography, agroecology, ethnobotany, and science and technology studies to understand how climatic change intersects with the local environmental relations of marginalized peoples. His dissertation, based on intensive ethnographic research with a Mam Mayan community in Guatemala’s Western Highlands, examines how U.S.-bound migration is transforming Mayan land-use practices and how, in turn, Mayans make sense of climate through their changing agricultural landscape. Before coming to Yale, Christian received an M.Phil. in Human Geography from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University, where he was a first-generation college student.