Christian Espinosa Schatz

I am a doctoral candidate in the combined program in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. My research engages with the fields of environmental anthropology, linguistic anthropology, human geography, agroecology, and ethnobotany to understand how climatic change intersects with the local environmental relations of marginalized peoples. My 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. In the most general terms, I am interested in the coupling of causes and their effects with symbols and their interpretants in the challenges faced by marginalized agrarian communities. More particularly, I am interested in telling the stories of the Mam Mayans I lived and worked with through the detailed description of their ecological practices and migration experiences. I aim to produce scholarship that contributes both to theoretical innovation and Mam Mayan welfare. 

Before coming to Yale, I 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 I was a first-generation college student. I grew up in a working-class immigrant community in Escondido, California, which inspired my commitment to scholarship that improves that lives of immigrants. I welcome questions from other first-generation students considering a PhD.