Robin Balliger

Prof. Balliger is a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include globalization, critical geography, music/sound, media, postcolonial theory, the Caribbean and California.  She has received fellowships from Fulbright, MacArthur, National Science Foundation, Mellon, and she was awarded the Textor Award for Outstanding Anthropological Creativity.  Balliger’s current project focuses on the arts and urban restructuring in 21st century Oakland.  She previously conducted research in Trinidad on music, media, and identity formation in national/transnational space.  In the 1980s, Balliger was a musician and activist in San Francisco; she co-founded Komotion International, a legendary artist collective, gallery, and performance space that exemplified the radical politics and creativity of SF’s Mission District.

Education: 

• PhD and MA, Stanford University
• BA, University of California, Berkeley

Selected Publications: 

• “Good Cop / Bad City: Oakland Police on Screen in ‘The Force,’” Reimagine: Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Dec. 2, 2017.
• “Mediating the Local: Radio and the Neoliberal Cultural Economy of Space in Trinidad,” Media Fields Journal: Critical Explorations in Media and Space, Vol. 4 (Scale), Feb. 2012.
• "The Politics of Cultural Value and the Value of Cultural Politics: International Intellectual Property Legislation in Trinidad," Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival. Eds. Garth Green and Phil Scher. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
• “The Sound of Resistance,” The Global Resistance Reader. Ed. Louise Amoore. London: Routledge. 2005.