Jennifer Roth-Gordon

Jennifer Roth-Gordon is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona where she has taught racial and social justice classes to thousands of undergraduates. Her first book, Race and the Brazilian Body: Blackness, Whiteness, and Everyday Language in Rio de Janeiro, is based on over 20 years of research on racial inequality in Rio and has been taught in undergraduate classes around the country. Her current book project, entitled Precious White Lives: Middle-Class Parenting and the Protection of Whiteness in Rio de Janeiro, tells the story of how “good parenting” entails the shoring up of racial privilege through the hyper-valuation and protection of white life. She is the mother of one white biological child and two African American adopted children.