Faculty
Lara Putnam Associate Professor University of Pittsburgh |
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| Field(s) | Latin American History
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| Teaching |
Modern Latin America
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| Selected Publications | Honor, Status, and Law in Modern Latin America. Sueann Caulfield, Sarah Chambers, and Lara Putnam, eds. (Duke University Press, 2005) The Company They Kept: Migrants and the Politics of Gender in Caribbean Costa Rica, 1870–1960 (University of North Carolina Press, 2002) “Contact Zones: Heterogeneity and Boundaries in Caribbean Central America at the Start of the Twentieth Century,” Iberoamericana [Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin] 6, no. 23 (setiembre 2006): 113-125. “To Study the Fragments/Whole: Microhistory and the Atlantic World,” Journal of Social History 39, no. 3 (Spring 2006). |
| Honors/Awards |
ACLS Fellowship (2006) Two-year research grant. Central Research Development Fund, University of Pittsburgh (2004-2006). Central America Fellowship. David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University (2001)
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| Project(s) |
"The Problem of Youth at the End of Empire: State Racism, Civil Society, and Policies toward British Caribbean Youth at Home and Abroad, 1900-1970". This study aims first to describe the historical development of public policies impacting British Caribbean youth, focusing on the ways changing ideas about "race," "national character," and "cultural psychology" shaped social policy; and then to measure the impact of those policies as actually implemented. By comparing outcomes among the grandchildren of British West Indian migrants in Jamaica, Costa Rica, Panama, Barbados, and Trinidad, I take advantage of a natural experiment that allows me to test the hypothesis that migrants' cultural heritage determines success among immigrant youth. My results demonstrate the plasticity of youth cultures, and suggest that public investment in education-even when undertaken by a xenophobic state-can open real opportunities for immigrant advance. |
