WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross anthropology Professor Daniel M. Goldstein recently received a Grant for Research and Writing from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is one of only 37 researchers worldwide to earn this honor.
After writing at 12-page grant proposal last February, Goldstein was chosen from over 350 applicants from a variety of disciplines. His application went through three rounds of deliberation before the grant announcement was made this month. Goldstein will receive $74,000 over a period of 17 months toward his research.
In this year’s Research and Writing Competition, eligible topics were those that address the dynamics of international security, sustainability and cooperation. Goldstein’s project, titled “Vigilante Justice and the Challenge to Global Security,” is based in Cochabamba, Bolivia, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
As people migrate from the country to the city in search of economic opportunity, large settlements, or “barrios,” have sprung up around the city, and these remain unregulated by the state. People live in terrible conditions, without running water, sewers, paved roads and social services like police protection. As a result, the crime rate is very high, and, without legal protection, people in the barrios are turning to vigilante actions, such as lynching thieves.
Goldstein sees these lynchings not just as an effort at law enforcement, but as a political statement against state inaction and corruption. He claims that the local people are lodging a moral complaint against the state, challenging its legitimacy and attacking it for failing to protect the rights of its citizens. Such vigilante actions threaten the stability of new democracies like the one in Bolivia, and the fear mounts that the state may return to the authoritarian forms of rule that have characterized the country for much of its history.
Goldstein, an assistant professor, has taught at Holy Cross since 1999. In addition to his role in the anthropology department, he is a member of the Latin American Studies faculty at the College.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Goldstein earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Before joining the Holy Cross faculty, he served as a visiting assistant professor at Miami University.
The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Goldstein is author of “Troubling Subjects: The Politics of Exclusion and Incorporation in the Management of an Urban Public Sphere.” His research interests include political and legal anthropology, historical political economy, and peoples and societies of Latin America.
A resident of the Tatnuck Square area of Worcester, Goldstein and his wife, Claire, a teacher in the Worcester Public Schools, are parents of two boys, Benjamin and Eli.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. The Foundation makes grants totaling in excess of $180 million each year through four programs, Global Security and Sustainability, Human and Community Development, the MacArthur Fellows Program and the General Program. In its work, the Foundation seeks the development of healthy individuals and effective communities; peace within and among nations; responsible choices about human reproduction; and a global ecosystem capable of supporting healthy human societies.