William L. Alexander
Department Chair
Dr. Alexander is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and has been Chair of the Anthropology Department since 2018. At UNCW he has expanded our medical anthropology and environmental anthropology course offerings and increased our training of students for graduate studies and related careers in those fields. In 2017, he co-designed the Medical Humanities minor. Dr. Alexander frequently provides undergraduates with research opportunities in his various projects and is excited to show them how critical theory and ethnographic fieldwork can be applied in addressing crucial societal and environmental problems. Before coming to UNCW, he was Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at University of Arizona South.
Education
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Arizona
M.A. in Anthropology, University of Arizona
B.S. in Radio-Television-Film, University of Southern Mississippi
Specialization in Teaching
Dr. Alexander teaches the following courses in our program: ANT 206 Cultural Anthropology, ANT 208 Language and Culture, ANT 309 Environmental Anthropology, ANT 317 Social Issues in Latin America, ANT 327 Globalization and Culture Change, ANT 329 Environmental Justice Ethnography, ANT 330 The Immigrant Experience, ANT 346 Medical Anthropology, ANT 351 History of Anthropological Theory, and ANT 460 Poverty and Health: Critical Medical Anthropology Perspectives.
Research Interests
Dr. Alexander has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Chile, US/Mexico border, Cameroon, and eastern North Carolina. His specializations include economic development and underdevelopment, human ecology, political ecology, environmental justice, conservation, medical anthropology, immigration and migrant health, and ethnographic film. His recent projects study immigration enforcement and migrant farmworker health, activist responses to PFAS contamination of the Cape Fear River Basin, and the cultural history of Korup National Park in southwest Cameroon.
His research articles have been published in the journals Human Organization, Visual Anthropology Review, Journal of Political Ecology, Practicing Anthropology, North American Dialogue, Social Identities, Culture & Agriculture, and Anthropology of Work Review. His books include Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico (University of Colorado Press 2012, co-editor and co-author of four chapters), Lost in the Long Transition: Struggles for Social Justice in Neoliberal Chile (Lexington Press 2009, editor and author of two chapters) and Resiliency in Hostile Environments: The Comunidades Agrícolas of Chile's Norte Chico (Lehigh University Press 2008).
Selected recent work:
Alexander, William L. “Anthropology and Environmental Justice” in Environmental Justice: Key Issues, 2nd ed., Brendan Coolsaet, ed. (Routledge 2026, forthcoming)
Alexander, William L., E. Christian Wells, Martha Lincoln, Brittany Y. Davis, and Peter C. Little. “Environmental Justice Ethnography in the Classroom: Teaching Activism, Inspiring Involvement” Human Organization (2021) 80 (1): 37-48.
Alexander, William L., Mary K. Brannock, and Anthony Guevara. “Shifting the Contours of Public Engagement through Ethnographic Filmmaking: Politics, Im/migrant Policing, and Farmworker Health Made Visible” Visual Anthropology Review (2020) 36 (2): 234-254