Fred Krissman, PhD

Fred Krissman, PhD - bio photo

Affiliations

Research Associate, Department of Anthropology

Areas of Expertise

  • Internal and international migration
  • Farm labor markets
  • Agricultural systems
  • Illegal commodities (undocumented labor and black market cannabis)
  • Socioeconomic inequalities within and across cultures Cross-culturalism (within and between cultures in America, Mexico, and Thailand)

Fred Krissman is a cultural anthropologist who has studied agricultural systems in North America (Mexico and the USA) and southeast Asia (Thailand) for three decades. Research interests include socioeconomic inequalities within and across nations, farm labor markets, migration networks, “illegal” commodities like undocumented labor and cannabis, and the interactions between mainstream and subculture adherents. Notable publications have focused on Mexican peasants who supplement their subsistence farming at home with migration to labor for corporate agribusinesses in the western USA. The most recent publication compares cannabis and capitalist (sub)cultures. Recent fieldwork includes living with cannabis farm families between 2016 and 2018 in northern California and on a medical hemp plantation during 2019 and 2020 in northeastern Thailand. I have let all my professional memberships lapse.