Catherine Bolten

Catherine Bolten is associate professor of anthropology and peace studies and director of doctoral studies at the Kroc Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. 

Bolten’s current field research project involves an investigation of wildlife cosmology and bushmeat in rural and urban Sierra Leone. She is tracking the circulation of wild game and agricultural products as a lens through which to understand poverty, development, consumption, the creation of value, and the sustainability of rural livelihoods in a country suffering international land grabs and grappling with the after-effects of the Ebola crisis. 

Bolten was a member of the international Ebola Anthropology Emergency Task Force, and is currently co-editing a special issue on Ebola for Anthropological Quarterly. She has consulted for the United Nations World Food Programme and Physicians for Social Responsibility, and has conducted extensive fieldwork on ethnobotany, eco-tourism, and development in Botswana.