Rate My Professor Brent Metz

Brent Metz is a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kansas, where he has been on the faculty since 2001. He also serves as Director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, a position he has held intermittently since 2015. Metz earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Albany in 1995, a degree in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1989, and undergraduate degrees in Spanish and Anthropology from Western Michigan University Honors College in 1986. Throughout his career, he has held key administrative roles at KU, including Undergraduate Coordinator in the Department of Anthropology for three years, service on the Undergraduate Committee in Anthropology for nine years and in Latin American and Caribbean Studies for 3.5 years, and leadership in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies as associate and graduate director from 2001 to 2005 and 2007. He has led multidisciplinary field schools among the Ch’orti’ Maya in Honduras and Guatemala in 2011, 2013, and 2016, co-founded Engineers Without Borders – Sunflower Professional Chapter in 2011 for sustainable development initiatives, and served on boards including Lawrence Centro Hispano from 2006 to 2012, facilitating student service learning since 2007. Since 2016, he has been part of a multidisciplinary research team addressing climate change and water scarcity in Central America's Dry Corridor.

Metz's research specializes in indigeneity, indigenous reformulation, culture and power, collective memory, ethnographic representation, and masculinity, with a primary focus on the Ch’orti’ Maya of eastern Guatemala, western Honduras, and northwestern El Salvador, as well as broader Mesoamerican and Latin American contexts. His work encompasses applied anthropology, development, quality of life, identity, political participation, health, technology, climate change, water scarcity, migration, service learning, and ethnography. He has authored four books, including Ch'orti'-Maya Survival in Eastern Guatemala: Indigeneity in Transition (2006), Primero Dios: Etnografía y cambio social entre los Mayas Ch'orti's del oriente de Guatemala (2002), and The Ch’orti’ Maya Area: Past and Present (2009, co-edited), along with approximately 20 articles and chapters on indigenous movements, international migration, demography, religious conversion, and migrant farmworkers. Key publications include “Questions of Indigeneity and the (Re)-Emergent Ch'orti' Maya of Honduras” (2010, Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology), “The Violence After ‘La Violencia’ in the Ch'orti' Region of Eastern Guatemala” (2010, co-authored), and “Adjusting Photovoice for Marginalized Indigenous Women” (2017, Human Organization). Metz has received the Woodyard International Educator Award in 2017 and the KU Service Learning Award in 2023. He has designed and taught 22 different courses across five institutions, including online courses and study abroad programs to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico, and has mentored 56 PhD committees (seven chaired) and 60 MA committees (22 chaired).