Directory

Christine Hippert, PhD/MPH

About

Hippert is a cultural anthropologist with a Master’s in public health. Her expertise is in the anthropology of food and health; international development and culture change; intersections of race, gender, class, and citizenship; and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Since 1998, Hippert has completed long-term fieldwork in Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. She uses a social-ecology theoretical framework and ethnographic methods to understand how diverse groups of people around the world access resources (food, housing, education, health care) in ways that preserve dignity, cultural identity, the environment, and health. Hippert has also completed program evaluations in the US for organizations tackling food insecurity. She uses her research results to help eliminate poverty and alleviate oppression.

Degrees

Research Interests

Hippert’s most recent research project in the Dominican Republic was published with Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield). Not Even a Grain of Rice: Buying Food on Credit in the Dominican Republic is part of a book series called, “Crossing Borders in a Global World: Applying Anthropology to Migration, Displacement, and Social Change.” The book examines food shopping and in-store credit to buy food in an international tourism destination and a hub for migrant laborers in the Dominican Republic, and highlights people’s experiences with food, debt, and survival to reveal emerging social changes between Dominicans and migrant Haitians. 

Hippert and a team of undergraduate Anthropology students completed applied research in two organizations in La Crosse, WI: the Farm 2 School program in the school district of La Crosse (administered by the La Crosse County Public Health Department), and the Kane Street Gardens (part of the La Crosse Hunger Task Force). The Farm 2 School program evaluation led to the publication of an article for Practicing Anthropology, co-written by Hippert with five undergraduate Anthropology students.

Hippert’s dissertation research was conducted in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and funded by a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship and a David L. Boren Fellowship for intensive Quechua language instruction. She worked in a semi-rural, economically-marginalized community to reveal the impacts of participatory democracy on the community’s access to health care, food, education, and housing.

Professional & Community Affiliations

• American Anthropological Association, Latin American Studies Association, North Central Council of Latin Americanists

Awards

• Eagle Teaching Award, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL, 2018)
• College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Research Award (UWL, 2012)
• College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities Teaching Award (UWL, 2010)
• Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship Award (2005)
• David L. Boren Language Fellowship Award (2004)

Selected Publications

Hippert, Christine

• 2021 Not Even A Grain of Rice: Buying Food on Credit in the Dominican Republic. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield.
• 2017 The Moral Economy of Corner Stores and Haitian-Dominican Interpersonal Relations in the Dominican Republic. Food and Foodways: Explorations in History and Culture of Human Nourishment 24(3): 1-22.
• 2011 The Politics and Practices of Constructing Development Identities in Rural Bolivia. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 16(1): 90-113.
• 2011 Women's Spaces, Gender Mainstreaming, and Development Priorities: Popular Participation as a Gendered Process in Rural Bolivia. Women’s Studies International Forum 34:498-508.

Schwartz, Ashley (UWL student) and Christine Hippert

• 2019 Examining “Gap-Filling” in the Curriculum of the Pirwa After-School Program for Children in Huancarani, Bolivia. Practicing Anthropology 41(2): 34-39.

Hippert, Christine, Emma Bremer, Angela Rooker, Mitchell Running, Hana Tanberg, & Rileigh Van Driessche (UWL students)

• 2014 From Local Fields to School Lunch Lines: Multiple Stakeholders' Perspectives in a Farm 2 School Program. Practicing Anthropology 36(1): 11-16.

For a complete list of publications, awards and affiliations, please view her CV.