Kim Clark

Biography

Kim Clark is a Department Chair, Professor -Sociocultural Anthropology of Anthropology in Biochemistry at the university of Western Ontario, Canada.

Research Interest

My research as a political anthropologist and historical anthropologist has examined the tensions and contradictions of nation and state formation in highland Ecuador in the first half of the twentieth century. This general interest has been explored through such projects as: an analysis of how the construction of the national railway reorganized regional, ethnic and class relations (my 1998 book); consideration of racial and national ideologies especially in the triangular relation between indigenous peasants, agrarian elites and state actors (2007 co-edited volume and various articles); and most recently how women participated in state formation as both objects and agents of gendered social policy (2012 book). My current book project takes this program in new directions by examining the everyday practices of the Public Health Service to probe how it is that the state comes to seem real and functional and present in people’s lives – and how the reification of the state occurs in social processes (not just in academic accounts) as it begins to be experienced as separate and above society.