Mariann Vaczi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor; Director of Graduate Studies
Mariann Vaczi

Summary

Mariann Vaczi completed her Ph.D. in Basque Studies and Anthropology in 2013. As an anthropologist, she focuses on sport, physical culture and the body from social, political and cultural perspectives. Her particular interest is the politics of the moving body, and sporting cultures in various sub-national and ethnic contexts. Her main ethnographic work includes Catalonia’s Human Towers: Castells, Cultural Politics, and the Struggle Toward the Heights (Indiana University Press 2023), and Soccer, Culture and Society in Spain: An Ethnography of Basque Fandom (Routledge 2015).

Research interests

  • Indigenous, traditional, and folk sports and movement cultures
  • Modern sports
  • Ritual and cultural performance genres
  • Folklore, festival, and heritage
  • The body
  • Death and dying
  • Gender and sexuality
  • Identity constructions
  • Nationalism and secessionism

Courses taught

  • Sport & Society from a Global Perspective
  • Basque Culture (Online)

Main publications

  • Catalonia’s Human Towers: Castells, Cultural Politics, and the Struggle Toward the Heights (Indiana University Press 2023)
  • Indigenous, Traditional, and Folk Sports: Contesting Modernities (co-edited with Alan Bairner, Routledge 2023)
  • Sport and Secessionism (co-edited with Alan Bairner, Routledge 2020)
  • Soccer, Culture and Society in Spain: An Ethnography of Basque Fandom (Routledge 2015)

Education

  • Ph.D., Basque Studies and Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno, 2013
  • M.A., English and American Studies, ELTE University, Budapest, 2006
  • M.A., Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Budapest, 2005
  • B.A., Anthropology, Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania 2004