Daniel A. Graham

Graduate Student
BA 1994 (Political Science) University of Washington; MA 2002 (Geography) UC Berkeley; PhD 2009 (19 December, Geography), UC Berkeley
Regional focus: Honduras, Central America, Latin America

Picture of Daniel A. Graham

My research has focused on identity politics and resource struggles in Honduras. In 2000, while investigating discourses of violence in Olancho Department, Honduras, I gathered oral accounts of a social bandit named Canuto whom people likened to Robin Hood. Contested narratives about Canuto revealed much about informants’ class position and political affinities. In 2001, I was a participant-observer in a peasant protest against the forceful installation of a hydroelectric project within the buffer zone of Sierra de Agalta National Park. Events surrounding that protest—including the murder of one of the protesters—piqued my interest in identifying rural social-movement organizations that have found success in asserting and defending subsistence communities' access to and control over local resources. The culmination of research into this question is my dissertation, Ghosts and Warriors: Cultural-Political Dynamics of Indigenous Resource Struggles in Western Honduras.

Selected publications

Graham, Daniel. 2009. Ghosts and Warriors: Cultural-Political Dynamics of Indigenous Resource Struggles in Western Honduras. Doctoral dissertation (Geography), University of California at Berkeley. Filed August 14.

Bonta, Mark Andrew, Oscar Flores Pinot, Daniel Graham, Jody Haynes, and German Sandoval. 2006. Ethnobotany and Conservation of Tiusinte (Dioon mejiae Standl. & L.O. Williams, Zamiaceae) in Northeastern Honduras. Journal of Ethnobiology 26 (2):228-257.

Graham, Daniel. 2002. Paper Arrows: Peasant Resistance and Territoriality in Honduras. Master's thesis (Geography), University of California at Berkeley.

Personal interests

I love basketball and bicycles. I'm especially fond of lugged steel touring bikes. My prize possession is a Rivendell Atlantis whom I've provisionally Named Tasogare Shokupan Crowhurst. [Update: I have renamed my bike Nick the Chopper.] Unfortunately, I probably spend more time staring at it than riding it. I enjoy doing different sorts of creative and/or goofy things. In 2007, I headed up a silly bike ride called the Tour de Franks in which about 20 of us rode bikes through the East Bay and sampled the wares of six independent hot dog joints. (Kudos to Andy Bliss, who won the Yellow Jersey as our Overall Wiener.) I am tinkering with several screenwriting projects. Don't hold your breath.

Websites of interest

Latin American Network Information Center
This website, administered by the University of Texas, is the single-best electronic resource I know of for finding information germane to Latin America.

Chronicle of Higher Ed Jobs
Jobs here. Get your red-hot jobs! 

Bear Left
One-stop shopping for left and progressive resources. 

Revistazo
Honduran, investigative newsmagazine.

Fail blog
Sometimes indulging in a little Schadenfreude can help you serve the greater good. 

Baris Manco's "Nick the Chopper" 
The song that perhaps best exemplifies the righteous sound of Turkish rock in 1975. 

Contact information

grahamd@berkeley.edu