Professor Ulla D. Berg is an Associate Professor at the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Anthropology and former Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Rutgers (2015-2021). As a sociocultural and visual anthropologist specializing in Latin America and in Latino communities in the U.S., Prof. Berg’s research focuses on historical and contemporary processes and experiences of migration and mobility within Latin America and between this region and the United States. Her first book, Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S., examined how transnational communicative practices and forms of exchange produce new forms of kinship and sociality across multiple borders among racialized global labor migrants. She has also edited several edited volumes including El Quinto Suyo: Transnacionalidad y Formaciones Diaspóricas en la Migración Peruana (with Karsten Paerregaard) Transnational Citizenship Across the Americas (with Robyn Rodriguez) and Migración (with Irére Ceja and Soledad Alvarez Velasco).
Berg is currently working on three book projects: The first is a single-authored book on immigrant detention and deportation of South Americans from the U.S. The second is an edited volume (with Aldo Lauria Santiago) titled Latina/o New Jersey: Histories, Communities, Politics (forthcoming 2024). The third is a social history of the Elizabeth Detention Center and of immigration detention in New Jersey and the United States (with Carolina Sanchez Boe). Prof. Berg is an active member of several professional organizations. She was the Program Co-Chair for the LASA Congress 2023 in Vancouver and she currently co-convenes EASA’s Anthropology of Confinement Network.