
Maria Cruz-Torres
Associate Professor, School of Transborder Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
School of Transborder Studies
Arizona State University
PO Box 873502
Tempe, AZ 85287-3502
USA
Titles
- Senior Sustainability Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
- Associate Professor, School of Transborder Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
- Affiliated Faculty, Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
Biography
Dr. Cruz-Torres' research focuses on the impact of globalization and neoliberal policies upon the environment, local communities and households. Her current research, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, examines the intersections between gender and sustainability in the shrimp industry of northwestern Mexico. Dr. Cruz-Torres has conducted research on the social and environmental dimensions of fisheries and aquaculture development in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Florida. She has also conducted research on the political ecology of water and irrigation in the Mexicali-Calexico border. She was a consultant for a National Science Foundation Bio-complexity Project focusing on the links between human and biophysical processes in coastal marine ecosystems in Baja California, Mexico. She is currently the President of the Political Ecology Society and teaches courses on political ecology and ethnography of the borderlands and on gender and sustainability.
Education
- PhD, Rutgers University, 1991
- MA, Rutgers University, 1987
- BS, University of Puerto Rico, 1985
Expertise
- urban social-ecological systems
- coastal and marine life
- water resources and treatment
- food
- conservation
- immigration/emigration
- natural resources
- gender
- urban affairs/planning
- climate change
- agriculture
- economic development
- ecology
- Life Below Water
- Gender Equality
- Reduced Inequalities
- human ecology
- climate change impacts
- food policy
- fisheries management
- urban development
- marine ecology
- economic anthropology
- poverty
- land use and land cover
- food systems
- agrarian societies
- migration
- fisheries
- natural resource management
Journal Articles
2014
Munoz-Erickson, T. A., A. E. Lugo, E. Melendez-Ackerman, L. E. Santiago-Acevedo, J. Seguinot-Barbosa, P. Mendez-Lazaro, M. Hall, B. Quintero, A. Ramirez, D. Garcia-Montiel, R. G. Pontius Jr, O. M. Ramos-Gonzalez, R. Santiago-Bartolomei, J. Verdejo-Ortiz, J. R. Ortiz-Zayas, C. M. Concepcion, D. Cusack, J. Giusti, W. McDowell, M. L. Cruz-Torres, J. Vallejo, L. Cray, J. Zimmerman, V. Cuadrado-Landrau and M. Figueroa. 2014. Knowledge to serve the city: Insights from an emerging knowledge-action network to address vulnerability and sustainability in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Cities and the Environment 7(1):Art. 5. (link )
2012
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2012. Unruly women and invisible workers: The shrimp traders of Mazatlán, Mexico. Signs 37(3):610-617. DOI: 10.1086/662722. (link )
2001
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2001. Local-level responses to environmental degradation in northwestern Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Research 57(2):11-136. (link )
2000
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2000. "Pink gold rush": Shrimp aquaculture, sustainable development and the environment in northwestern Mexico. Journal of Political Ecology 7:63-90. (link )
1992
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 1992. Shrimp mariculture in Mexico. World Aquaculture 23(1):49-51.
Books
2012
Cruz-Torres, M. L. and P. McElwee eds. 2012. Gender and Sustainability: Lessons from Asia and Latin America. University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ.
2007
Cruz-Torres, M. L. and R. E. Moran Angulo. 2007. Fisheries, Sustainability and the Environment in Sinaloa, (Pesca, Medio Ambiente y Sustentabilidad en Sinaloa). University of Sinaloa Press.
2004
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2004. Lives of Dust and Water: An Anthropology of Change and Resistance in Northwestern Mexico. University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ.
Book Chapters
2012
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2012. Contested livelihoods: Gender, fisheries and resistance in northwestern Mexico. Pp. 207-230 In: Cruz-Torres, M. L. and P. McElwee eds., Gender and Sustainability: Lessons from Asia and Latin America. University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ.
Cruz-Torres, M. L., P. McElwee and P. McElwee. 2012. Introduction: Gender and Sustainability. Pp. 1-24 In: Cruz-Torres, M. L. ed., Gender and Sustainability: Lessons from Asia and Latin America. University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ.
2011
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2011. El Género y la Sustentabilidad desde la Perspectiva de la Antropología Cultural. Pp. 182-193 In: Acharya, A. ed., Migración, Género y Tráfico de Mujeres: Una Perspectiva desde la Sustenabilidad. Editorial Académia Española. Madrid.
2007
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2007. Gender, work and globalization: The shrimp traders of Mazatlan, Mexico. In: Cruz-Torres, M. L. and R. E. Moran Angulo eds., Fisheries and Sustainable Development in Northwestern Mexico. University of Sinaloa Press. Culiacán, Mexico.
2001
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 2001. The rural people of Mexico's northwest coast. Pp. 19-38 In: Stonich, S. ed., Endangered Peoples of Latin America: Struggles to Survive and Thrive. Greenwood Press.
1996
Cruz-Torres, M. L. 1996. Shrimp mariculture development in two Mexican rural communities. Pp. 171-191 In: Bailey, C., S. Jentoft and P. Sinclair eds., Aquacultural Development: Social Dimensions of an Emerging Industry. Westview Press. Boulder, CO.