Marc Edelman’s research and writing have focused on agrarian issues, social movements, and a variety of Latin American topics, including the historical roots of nationalism and contemporary politics. Most of his work has dealt with changing land tenure and land use patterns, production systems, rural class relations, and social movements in Central America. He has a longstanding concern with understanding changing forms of capitalism and with the politics of controlling markets, whether through welfare states, civil society pressure or global trade rules. Currently, Edelman is working on a project on the history of the efforts of transnational agrarian movements to have the United Nations approve a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.
Edelman has served on the editorial boards of American Anthropologist (Book Review Editor, 2002-5), American Ethnologist (2011-), Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos (Consejo Editorial Internacional, 2008-), Critique of Anthropology (1998-), Cuadernos de Antropología (Comité Científico, 2009-), Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment (1995-98, 2013-), Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology (2004-), Journal of Agrarian Change (2008-), Journal of Latin American Anthropology (1994-99), Journal of Peasant Studies (Editorial Collective, 2009-), Latin American Research Review (2000-2003), NACLA Report on the Americas (1999-2006), Revue TRACE [Travaux et Recherches dans les Amériques du Centre] (2012-), and Studies in Comparative International Development (2005-).
Edelman is President of the American Ethnological Society, the oldest organization of professional anthropologists in the United States. He is also chair of the American Anthropological Association’s Rapid Response Network on Academic Freedom.