Dr. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor
Loyola University of Chicago
Department of Anthropology
Lake Shore Campus, Coffey Hall 444
1032 W. Sheridan Road
Chicago, Illinois 60660
(773) 508-3582
E-mail: rgombergmunoz@luc.edu
Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz 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 undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Dr. Gomberg-Muñoz has also been an ethnographer and organizer in Chicago’s immigrant rights movement since 2006. In addition, she has done 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-Muñoz 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
Resources for Undocumented Students
Loyola is committed to providing accurate information and resources for current and prospective undocumented students, their families, and allies. For details, please visit Loyola's page for non-citizen students at: http://www.luc.edu/diversity/resources/non-uscitizenstudent/
Current Research
Currently, Dr. Gomberg-Muñoz 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-Muñoz at rgombergmunoz@luc.edu.
Research Opportunities for Students
Dr. Gomberg-Muñoz 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.
Books
Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth
2011 Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199739382/
Peer-reviewed Articles
Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth
2012 Inequality in a “Postracial” Era: Race, Immigration, and Criminalization of Low-Wage Labor. The DuBois Review 9(2): 339-353.
2010 Willing to Work: Agency and Vulnerability in an Undocumented Immigrant Network. American Anthropologist 112(2):295-307.
2009 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.
Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth and Laura Nussbaum-Barberena
2011 Is Immigration Policy Labor Policy? Immigration Enforcement, Undocumented Labor, and the State. Human Organization 70(4): 366-375.
Cabrera, Rosa and Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz
2011 Conceptions of Health and Wellness in Two Chicago Neighborhoods. Museums and Social Issues 5(2): 202–215.