Anthropology Professor Laura Graham advocates for Xavante community against proposed railroad in Brazil

Thursday, January 28, 2016

University of Iowa Anthropology Professor Laura R. Graham has been working with the Xavante community in Brazil to advocate against a proposed route for the South American Transcontinental Railroad (“Twin Ocean” project). If constructed, the railroad would negatively impact Xavante people and their territories in Mato Grosso state, Brazil.

A grant authored by Graham has been awarded to Associação Xavante Warã. The grant will support Xavante efforts to organize a collective response from communities in seven distinct reservations regarding the proposed Twin Ocean Railroad project. The $5,000 grant is conferred by First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous-led nonprofit that supports local development projects in Indigenous communities.

Graham also co-authored/drafted a statement on the Twin Ocean Railroad on behalf of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA), an international professional anthropologists’ association. Graham is a member of SALSA’s Executive Board and chair of SALSA's Public Issues and Action Committee, which works to bring anthropological perspectives on timely issues into policy, media, and other public venues.

In addition to SALSA’s Twin Ocean Railroad statement in July, Graham also worked on a SALSA letter to Peruvian national leaders on the precarious situation of the isolated Mashco-Piro people in October 2014.

Graham is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.