CEWS Profile: James Holson

James Holston is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale University in 1986. His current research focuses on the uncertainties of citizenship and democratic change in the Americas, especially Brazil, and related transformations in the social and spatial organization of cities. He is also conducting research on the emergence of urban citizenship among recent immigrants in Southern California and has organized a civic initiative there focused on public space, markets, and microenterprises. Holston's publications include The Modernist City (University of Chicago Press), an edited volume entitled Cities and Citizenship (Duke University Press) and essays on citizenship and law, democracy and violence, architecture, planning, and new religions. He is presently completing a book on dilemmas of citizenship in new democracies.