Dr. James Andrew Whitaker
Assistant Professor
Bio
James Andrew Whitaker is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Southern Mississippi. His research focuses on ethnography and ethnohistory in Amazonia and West Africa. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Guyana with Makushi people since 2012 and Akawaio people since 2021. He has also conducted fieldwork in Mississippi and West Africa with Americo-Liberian and Indigenous communities with historical connections to the nineteenth century Liberian colony known as "Mississippi in Africa."
He is the author of The Shamanism of Eco-Tourism: History and Ontology among the Makushi in Guyana (Cambridge University Press, 2025), as well as co-editor of Climatic and Ecological Change in the Americas: A Perspective from Historical Ecology (Routledge, 2023), Sorcery in Amazonia (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, 2025), and Indigenous Alliance Making: Histories of Agency in Colonial Lowland South America (University of Arizona Press, 2025).
- PHD - Tulane University of Louisiana (2016)
- MA - Tulane University of Louisiana (2013)
- BA - University of Mississippi (2010)
- BA - University of Mississippi (2007)
Anthropology of Climate Change
Anthropology of Shamanism, Sorcery, and Magic
Ethnohistory and Historical Anthropology
Historical Ecology of Amazonia
Introduction to Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology
Seminar in Cultural Anthropology
- English (Native or Bilingual)
- Portuguese (Limited Working)
- Spanish (Limited Working)