Assistant Professor
Loyola University of Chicago
Department of Anthropology
Lake Shore Campus, Coffey Hall 444
1032 W. Sheridan Road
Chicago, Illinois 60660
(773) 508-3438
E-mail: rgombergmunoz@luc.edu

Ruth Gomberg-Munoz is a sociocultural anthropologist with research and teaching interests in political economy, migration, globalization, race/ethnicity/class, applied anthropology, and urban ethnography. Her research with Mexican immigrant workers in Chicago has explored how these workers negotiate perceptions of their labor as they struggle to attain autonomy, security, and dignity as “illegal” immigrants in the United States. The book based on this work can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199739382/.

Dr. Gomberg-Munoz has also done ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago’s Pilsen and West Rogers Park neighborhoods as part of a Field Museum project on Chicago residents’ engagement with local environments and beliefs about climate change. The reports from that work can be found on the Field Museum website at: www.fieldmuseum.org/ccuc/. As an applied anthropologist, Dr. Gomberg-Munoz believes in making anthropological research more accessible to a general audience, and she is a founding member and regular contributor to the blog, “Stop Raids, Detentions and Deportations”: http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com

 
Current Research

Currently, Dr. Gomberg-Munoz is conducting ethnographic research with Latin American immigrants in the Chicago area who are planning to adjust their immigration status or who have already adjusted their status. To learn more about this project or to participate in this research, please contact Dr. Gomberg-Munoz at rgombergmunoz@luc.edu.

 
Research Opportunities for Students

Dr. Gomberg-Munoz believes that students learn best by doing, and she encourages interested students to contact her about opportunities for gaining practical experience in ethnographic fieldwork. Students could use these opportunities to complete credits in Independent Study or Fieldwork, Mulcahy Scholarships, or Senior Honors Theses.

Selected Publications

2011    Cabrera, Rosa and Ruth Gomberg-Munoz. Conceptions of Health and Wellness in Two
Chicago Neighborhoods. Museums and Social Issues TBD.

2011    Gomberg-Munoz, Ruth. Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant
Network. New York: Oxford University Press.

 2011    Gomberg-Munoz, Ruth and Laura Nussbaum-Barberena. Is Immigration Policy Labor
Policy?: Immigration Enforcement, Undocumented Labor, and the State. Human Organization 70(4): TBD.

 2010    Gomberg-Munoz, Ruth. Willing to Work: Agency and Vulnerability in an Undocumented Immigrant Network. American Anthropologist 112(2):295-307.

2009    Gomberg-Munoz, Ruth. Not Just Mexico’s Problem: Labor Migration from Mexico to the United States (1900-2000).  Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies 3(3):2-18.