Faculty & Staff
New Faculty
Catherine Bolten
Assistant Professor
B.A., Williams College (1998)
MPhil., University of Cambridge, UK (2000)
M.A., University of Michigan (2003)
Ph.D., University of Michigan (2008)
Catherine Bolten is excited to be joining the faculty at Notre Dame in Fall 2009 as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Peace Studies. “I became an anthropologist because of the unique expertise the discipline brings to the pursuit of social justice and human rights, and clearly this is intrinsic to Notre Dame’s approach to education and research.” However clear the fit, Dr. Bolten was surprised to be offered a different position than the one for which she applied. “I must admit that when I arrived at Notre Dame to interview for a position in Anthropology and Development I did not expect to join the faculty as a joint professor with the Kroc Institute.”
This turn of events was brought about by Dr. Bolten’s particular approach to the study of conflict and conflict resolution. “I structure my research and writing around my conviction that—especially where wars in Africa are concerned—‘peace’ and ‘development’ are essentially the same concept.” Dr. Bolten formulated this approach during a year of studying Development Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, where she was encouraged by a friend to move her field site from Botswana to Sierra Leone and examine development in a country emerging from war as the least-developed nation on earth. Prior to this her research focus was eco-tourism, political marginalization and land-use conflict in the Okavango Delta.
Dr. Bolten’s research interests encompass a wide variety of topics under the peace/development rubric. Her immediate priority is to follow up on her study of wartime morality and social relationships for the book I Did It To Save My Life: Morality and Survival in Sierra Leone, which will be part of the University of California Press series in Public Anthropology. In the next few years, she intends to expand a study on youth, intergenerational tension and stymied development that emerged from her dissertation. In addition, she will pursue the relationship between political marginalization, resource exploitation and structural violence that foment and feed conflicts in impoverished rural areas. She has recent articles in The Journal of Political Ecology and The Journal of Modern African Studies.
Dr. Bolten is looking forward to teaching Notre Dame’s outstanding students, and encourages anyone with an interest in peace, development, or Africa to drop by for a chat.
Contact Information
317 Hesburgh Center
574-631-5099
bolten.2@nd.edu