Dr. Erika Robb Larkins

Professor
Office: AL-626 | Phone: (619) 594-5028 | Email: [email protected]

Erika Robb Larkins is Professor of Anthropology, Behner Stiefel Chair of Brazilian Studies, and Director of the Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University. She is the author of two books: The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil (University of California Press, 2015) and The Sensation of Security: Private Guards and Social Order in Brazil (Cornell University Press, 2023). She has also published widely on issues of race, gender, and politics in Brazil, with recent articles appearing in American Ethnologist, American Anthropologist, City and Society, and the Journal for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, and in public outlets including Al Jazeera, El País and Estadão. 

Current research includes a National Science Foundation-funded research project on extreme heat and inequality in Rio de Janeiro and Imperial Valley, California. A second visual anthropology project, “Emergent Ecologies: Living with Environmental Transformation in Brazil” focuses on environmental racism in low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, examining how people are impacted by water pollution, changes to oceans and tides, and ongoing land and real estate speculation. A third research project, currently in its initial stages, examines the expansion of organized crime to the Amazon and border regions. 

In 2024, in recognition of her scholarly and service contributions, the Rio de Janeiro City Council awarded her honorary Rio citizenship. Larkins is also the President of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA).