Rate My Professor Monty Roper

Monty Roper, Associate Professor and Chair of the Anthropology Department at Grinnell College, is a cultural anthropologist focused on the political economy of natural resource management, indigenous social movements, non-governmental organizations, and community development. He earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1999, with a dissertation titled The Political Ecology of Indigenous Self-Development in Bolivia’s Multiethnic Indigenous Territory. Additional qualifications include an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies from the University of Pittsburgh (1996), an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology (applied development) from the University of Kentucky (1994), an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Environmental Systems from the University of Kentucky (1993), and a B.A. in Anthropology and Biology (cum laude) from Ithaca College (1991). Since 2000, Roper has served as Associate Professor of Anthropology and Global Development Studies at Grinnell College, with prior positions including Adjunct Instructor at Appalachian State University (1999–2000) and various teaching roles at other institutions.

Roper's research examines small-scale rural indigenous and agricultural communities in Latin America, with fieldwork in Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, and interests extending to sub-Saharan Africa. As an applied anthropologist, he engages in sustainable development through program and project evaluation and policy analysis, including a policy paper for the World Bank on Indigenous Development in Latin America, analysis of legislative reforms on forest management in Bolivia, and cost-benefit assessments of commercial forestry for indigenous communities in Nicaragua’s Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region. Key publications include “NGOs and Community Development: Assessing the Contributions from Sen’s Perspective of Freedom” (2013) in A Companion to Organizational Anthropology edited by D. Caulkins and A. Jordan; “Indigenous Peoples” (2008) in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, Second Edition; “Bolivian Legal Reforms and Local Indigenous Organizations: Opportunities and Obstacles in a Lowland Municipality” (2003) in Latin American Perspectives; and reports such as An Assessment of Indigenous Participation in Commercial Forestry Markets: The Case of Nicaragua’s Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region (2003) for Forest Trends. He teaches courses including Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Global Development Studies, Cultural and Political Ecology, Practicing Anthropology, and Sustainable Development in the Modern World System, and mentors student research projects such as community diagnostics in Costa Rica and the Build a Better Grinnell 2030 initiative.