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Dr. Ben Penglase

Associate Professor

Ben Penglase received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003. He is a cultural anthropologist with research experience in Brazil. His most recent research project, based on fieldwork with residents of a favela (or squatter neighborhood), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, analyzes how drug trafficking, police violence and inequality are reshaping Brazilian society. His research interests include race and gender in Brazil, the cultural effects of globalization and neoliberalism, urbanization, human rights and cultural relativism, and Latin American social movements. Dr. Penglase has a joint appointment in Anthropology and Latin American Studies.

Courses Taught

  • ANTH 102: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
  • ANTH 203: Violence, Social Suffering, and Justice
  • ANTH 211: Peoples of Latin America
  • ANTH 224: Social Movements, Culture, and Activism
  • ANTH 305: Violence and Culture
  • ANTH 306: Anthropology and Human Rights

Publications/Research Listings

Book

2014 - Living with Insecurity in a Brazilian Favela: Urban Violence and Daily Life. Rutgers University Press.

Journal Articles, Book Chapters, and Other Selected Publications

2025 - The Unspoken Whiteness of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: The Gracies versus Luta Livre. Martial Arts Studies 18: 78-93. DOI: 10.18573/mas.300 

2025 - The Invisibility of Race in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: The Gracies versus Capoeira and Judo. Martial Arts Studies 17: 60-75.  DOI: 10.18573/mas.281

2019 - Tubarão and Seu Lázaro’s Dog: Spectacular and Banal Violence in a Brazilian Favela. Ethnography (Special Issue: Ethnographies and/of Violence in Latin American and the Caribbean) 20(3): 397-416.

2016 - Pacifying the Empire of Love: Sport, Spectacle, Security in Rio de Janeiro. Brasiliana (Special Issue: Pacification, Violence, and Geographies of  Class and Race in Rio de Janeiro) 4(2): 254-282.

2016 - An Oral History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: interview with Rolker Gracie. In The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Politics and Culture, Duke University Press.

2014 - Brazilian Football as a Means of Reflecting Upon Brazilian Society. World Post.

2013 - Invading the Favela: Echoes of Police Practices among Brazil's Urban Poor. In Policing and Contemporary Governance: The Anthropology of Police in Practice. William Garriott, ed. Palgrave Press.

2012 - Review of Drug War Zone by Howard Campbell.  Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. 17(2):373-375.

2011 - Review of Ideologies of Marginality in Brazilian Hip-Hop by Derek Pardue. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 16(1): 223-225.

2011 - Lost Bullets: Fetishes of Urban Violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Anthropological Quarterly 84(2): 411-438.

2010 - The Owner of the Hill: Masculinity and Drug-Trafficker Power in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 15(2): 317-337.

2009 - States of Insecurity: Everyday Emergencies, Public Secrets and Drug Trafficker Power in a Brazilian Favela. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 32(1): 407-423.

2009 - Interview: The New Anthropology of Crime. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 32(1): 465-483 (with P. Parnell and S. Kane). 

2008 - Review of Lucia: Testimonies of a Drug Dealer's Woman. The Luso-Brazilian Review 45(2): 205-208.

2008 - The Bastard Child of the Dictatorship: The Comando Vermelho and the Birth of "Narco-Culture" in Rio de Janeiro. The Luso-Brazilian Review 45(1): 118-145.

2007 - Barbarians on the Beach: Media Narratives of Violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Crime, Media and Culture 3(3): 305-325.

2005 - The Shutdown of Rio de Janeiro: The Poetics of Drug Trafficker Violence. Anthropology Today, Vol. 21, (October) No. 5.