I currently hold a joint appointment in the Southwest Center and the Department of Anthropology and have conducted ethnographic and ethnohistoric research in the Southwest and Northern Mexico since 1971. I directed the Mexican Heritage Project at the Arizona Historical Society from 1982-1984, and was Director of the Office of Ethnohistorical Research at ASM from 1997 to 2003.
I teach four courses: Southwest Land & Society (ANTH 418/518), Anthropology of Rural Mexico (ANTH 423/523), Anthropology & History (ANTH 696B), and Conservation & Community (ANTH 696B).
Since 1997, I've been involved in landuse politics in Arizona and the Southwest. I served as Chair of the Canoa Heritage Foundation, and have been heavily involved in Pima County's visionary Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan since 1998, chairing the Ranch Conservation Technical Advisory Team. I was President of the Anthroplogy & Environment Section of the American Anthropological Association from 2003 to 2005.
Important publications include LOS TUCSONENSES: THE MEXICAN COMMUNITY OF TUCSON, 1854-1941 (UA Press, 1986); WHERE THE DOVE CALLS: THE POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF A PEASANT CORPORATE COMMUNITY IN NORWESTERN MEXICO (UA Press 1988); ARIZONA: A HISTORY (UA Press 1995);and LANDSCAPES OF FRAUD: MISSION TUMACACORI, THE BACA FLOAT, AND THE BETRAYAL OF THE O'ODHAM (UA Press 2006).