Kay Warren facts for kids

Kay Barbara Warren (born in 1947) is an American anthropologist. An anthropologist is a scientist who studies people, their cultures, and how they live. Dr. Warren is well-known for her deep research and writings in cultural anthropology. This field looks at human societies and their cultures.

She first trained to study cultures in Latin America and Mesoamerica. These are regions in Central and South America. She focused on the native groups of people living there. Later, Dr. Warren also wrote and lectured on many other topics in anthropology. Her studies include how social movements, wars, and help from other countries affect groups of people. She especially looks at native communities and those who are often overlooked.

As of 2009, Dr. Warren holds a special teaching position at Brown University. She is the Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. ’32 Professor in International Studies. Before joining Brown in 2003, she was a professor at both Harvard and Princeton universities.

Her Journey in Education

Dr. Warren began her college studies in 1965 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in cultural anthropology and cultural geography in 1968. She then went to Princeton University for her advanced studies in cultural anthropology. She received her Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in 1970. She earned her PhD, which is the highest university degree, in 1974.

In 1973, before finishing her PhD, Dr. Warren started teaching anthropology. She taught at Mount Holyoke College, a women's college in Massachusetts. While there, she also taught a course at nearby Smith College, another women's college.

In 1982, Dr. Warren moved to Princeton University as an associate professor. In the same year, she became the first director of the Program in Women's Studies at Princeton. She became a full professor in 1988. From 1994, she led the Anthropology Department as its chair.

Dr. Warren joined Harvard University as a professor of anthropology in 1998. She taught there for five years. In 2003, she took on several roles at Brown University. She became the Tillinghast Professor in International Studies and a professor in anthropology. She also became a research professor at the Watson Institute for International Studies. From 2011 to 2014, she was the director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.

Awards and Recognitions

Dr. Warren has received many important awards for her work. These include:

• A Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship
• An Abe Fellowship (from Japan)
• The École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales Fellowship
• Being a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study
• A John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
• A Wenner-Gren Fellowship
• The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures

Exploring Cultures: Her Research

In the early 1970s, after getting her M.A. degree, Dr. Warren did field research. This means she lived among the people she was studying. She worked with the Maya peoples in the mountains of Guatemala. Her work there became her first book, The Symbolism of Subordination: Indian Identity in a Guatemalan Town (1978).

Dr. Warren went back to Guatemala in 1989 to update her research. Throughout the 1990s, she spent time each year with Maya communities in both rural and city areas. This led to another book, Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Maya Activism in Guatemala (1998). This book looked at how native Maya groups worked to keep their culture alive.

From 1974 to 1985, Dr. Warren spent much of her time doing field assignments in the Andes mountains and rural Peru. She studied how societies change, how people see themselves, and the roles of men and women in native Peruvian communities. She did a lot of this research with Susan Bourque, a politics professor. Together, they wrote Women of the Andes: Patriarchy and Social Change in Rural Peru. This book won several awards and shared their findings about the lives of women in the Andes.