Elizabeth Falconi, Ph.D.
Lecturer of Anthropology
678-839-6458
efalconi@wes tga.edu
Miller Hall - Room 1213
Office Hours
Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:45 - 10:45 am, in Miller Room #1213, or virtually by appointment.
Elizabeth Falconi is a linguistic anthropologist who received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2011. Her research focuses on migration across borders that define and divide nations, social groups, communities, speakers and languages. She came to this focus through her own engagements with language and migration moving between the United States and Latin American during her childhood and then again later as an adult. Her current research investigates a Zapotec transborder community formed by migration between San Juan Guelavía, a rural village in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and Los Angeles, California. She has found that for highly dispersed populations shared forms of narration, discursive patterning, and reflexive forms of talk enable Guelavians in Oaxaca, Los Angeles and elsewhere to constitute a “narrated community” amid the challenges of fragmentation and transformation faced by community members separated by time and space. Like other indigenous populations, Zapotec communities have been historically marginalized in Mexico, and they comprise a minority within a minority in the United States. For example, among Guelavians fears of language-based discrimination are bound up with two simultaneous and mutually reinforcing patterns of language shift away from Zapotec occurring on both sides of the border, towards the use of English and Spanish. In fact, experiences of marginalization and discrimination are so pervasive that they provide for powerful forms of connectivity that bind Guelavians in diaspora to their kin in Oaxaca.
When not teaching or researching, Elizabeth enjoys spending time with her two children, husband, and dog, as well as walks in the woods, swimming, yoga, cooking, and reading fiction.
- Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2011
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture)
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture)
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology)
- ANTH-2002 (Intro to Cultural Anthropology)
- ANTH-4130 (Medical Anthropology)
- ANTH-4146 (Latin@s in the United States)
- ANTH-4173 (Language and Culture)
- ANTH-4176 (Narrative and Storytelling)
- ANTH-4885 (Latinos/as in the U.S.)
- ANTH-4983 (Latin@s In The United States)
- ANTH-5885 (Latinos/as in the U.S.)
Fall 2024 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01D external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 02D external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4130 (Medical Anthropology) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Summer 2024 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Spring 2024 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-2002 (Intro to Cultural Anthropology) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Fall 2023 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4146 (Latin@s in the United States) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4983 (Latin@s In The United States) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Summer 2023 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Spring 2023 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E03 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E06 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture - Honors) Section: 25H external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4173 (Language and Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Fall 2022 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4130 (Medical Anthropology) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Summer 2022 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Spring 2022 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4173 (Language and Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Fall 2021 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4176 (Narratv&Strytllng in Ethngrphy) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Summer 2021 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Spring 2021 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4173 (Language and Culture) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Fall 2020 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E02 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture-Honors) Section: 25H external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
- ANTH-4146 (Latin@s in the United States) Section: 01 external Syllabus via Concourse External Resource
Summer 2020 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: E02
Spring 2020 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E02
- ANTH-4176 (Narrative and Storytelling) Section: 01
Fall 2019 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 02
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E01
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E02
Summer 2019 Sections
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: E01
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E01
Spring 2019 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: E01
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: E02
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 01
- ANTH-1101 (Voices of Culture) Section: 02
Fall 2018 Sections
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: 02
- ANTH-4885 (Narrative & Storytelling Ethno) Section: 02
Summer 2018 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: E03
Spring 2018 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: 03
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: 02
- ANTH-4885 (Latinos/as in the U.S.) Section: 02
- ANTH-5885 (Latinos/as in the U.S.) Section: 03
Fall 2017 Sections
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: 03
- ANTH-1100 (Faces of Culture) Section: 04
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E03
- ANTH-1102 (Intro to Anthropology) Section: E04
Falconi, Elizabeth. (2023) "Narrating Transborder Communities." In A New Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Duranti, George, and Riner (eds.). Wiley-Blackwell. [View Publication External Resource]
Book Review, "Passing: Two Publics in a Mexican Border City, by Rihan Yeh" [View Publication External Resource]
Falconi & Graber. (2019) Storytelling as Narrative Practice: Ethnographic Approaches to the Tales We Tell. Brill Press: Boston, MA. [View Publication External Resource]
"Telling Traditions: The Dynamics of Zapotec Storytelling" [View Publication External Resource]
Falconi, Elizabeth. (2018) [View Publication External Resource]
Linguistic Anthropology and Ethnolinguistics [View Publication External Resource]
“Transborder Contact: Shifting Patterns of Linguistic Differentiation in a Zapotec Community” In The International Journal o [View Publication External Resource]
Falconi, Elizabeth. (2013) "Storytelling, Language Shift, and Revitalization in a Transborder Community: 'Tell it in Zapotec.'" In American Anthropologist. [View Publication External Resource]