Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida with a focus on applied anthropology, anthropology of disasters, anthropology of development, and medical anthropology.

Dr. Barrios has researched disaster risk reduction and recovery since 1999. He has conducted fieldwork in a variety of locations in Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, the U.S. Midwest and the U.S. Gulf South. Using ethnographic methods, Dr. Barrios’ work has focused on documenting the voices of disaster survivors with specific attention to the categories through which they define successful disaster recovery and the ways they narrate the connection between sensory experience and the built, social, and “natural” environments.

Dr. Barrios is author of Governing Affect: Neoliberalism and Disaster Reconstruction and co-editor of Disaster Upon Disaster: Exploring the Gap Between Knowledge, Policy and Practice. He is also co-editor of the Berghahn book series Catastrophes in Context with Crystal Felima and Mark Schuller.

Recent Publications Include:

2020 Susanna Hoffman and Roberto E. Barrios, eds. Disaster Upon Disaster: Exploring the Gap Between Risk and Disaster Knowledge. New York: Berghahn.

2020 (A.J. Faas, Roberto E. Barrios, Virginia García Acosta, Adriana Garriga-López, Seven Mattes, Jennifer Trivedi) Engangled Roots and Otherwise Possibilities: An Anthropology of Disasters COVID-19 Research Agenda. Human Organization 79(4), 333-342.

2019 (Christian M. Appendini, Rafael Meza-Padilla, Said Abud-Russsell, Sébastien Proust, Roberto E. Barrios, and Fernando Secaira-Fajardo) Effect of Climate Change Over Landfalling Hurricanes at the Yucatan Penninsula. Climatic Change 157, 469-482.

2018 (Roberto E. Barrios, Grace E. Vargas, Raja Swamy, Thomas Tran, Irene Martinez, and Mayra Sierra. Interpreting Catastrophe: An Examination of Houston’s Many Voices in the Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 38(1): 121-143

2018 The post-Harvey “recovery” is a political disaster Anthropology News August 15, 2018.

2017 Governing Affect: Neoliberalism and Disaster Reconstruction. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

2017 What Does Catastrophe Reveal for Whom? The Anthropology of Crises and Disasters at the Onset of the

Anthropocene. Annual Review of Anthropology 46, 151-166. 2016 Resilience: A Commentary From the Vantage Point of Anthropology. Annals of Anthropological Practice 40 (1), 23-33.

2015 (A.J. Faas and Roberto E. Barrios) Applied Anthropology of Risks, Hazards, and Disasters (introduction to special issue on the anthropology of risks, hazards and disasters). Human Organization 74(4), 287-296.