Mission Statement

The Neotropical Anthropology Laboratory advances the University of Kansas’s commitment to global inquiry that is empirically rigorous, theoretically generative, and grounded in obligations to the communities whose participation gives this work its significance.

The mission of the laboratory rests upon reciprocal engagement with local partners whose knowledge, history, and civic aspirations demand scholarly fidelity. This aspiration extends beyond knowledge production to embrace scholarship that is reparative, civically engaged, morally attentive, and reflective of the complex worlds it seeks to understand.

The Neotropical Anthropology Laboratory strengthens KU’s global standing through research that is intellectually consequential and socially responsive. It envisions an academic commons where faculty, researchers, students, and collaborators produce knowledge that is rigorous, collaborative, ethically grounded, and resonant with the lived realities of Neotropical communities.