Prof. Claire Cesareo, MA, M.Phil, Ph.D.

I am a cultural anthropologist and professor at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, where I have been teaching since 2000. My primary research is in Brazil on issues of agrarian reform, social movements, and the construction and use of social memory. Other areas of interest include visual anthropology, especially the use of photography in the construction of memory, the role of religion in social change, and the politics of ethnographic practice. My current projects include a study of the landless workers movement in Brazil and the creation of a nostalgic identity, a study of Brazilian religions in the diaspora, and a study of religious iconography in tattoo design in the United States.