Amira De la Garza is Associate Professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.  She is a performance ethnographer with expertise in qualitative research, auto-ethnographic fieldwork, and the creation of performative texts from ethnographic research.

Dr. De la Garza emphasizes themes of cultural identity, spirituality, and wellness in her work, with an interest in the ways culture, religion, and habituated & institutionalized behaviors constrain and influence collective and self-expression.  She finds material for her work in cultural borderlands and through fieldwork to historical and living cultural sites, as well as through engaged social action in sites related to her research interests.

She has held two Fulbright scholarships to Mexico and served as the Acting Director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) during its inception from 2005-2007.  She currently is research faculty with NACTS, disciplinary faculty with Barrett Honors College, and affiliate faculty with ASU’s Women & Gender Studies  in the School of Social Transformation, and the department of Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies.  She currently leads the newest strategic initiative of the Hugh Downs School--the Initiative for Innovative Inquiry.