Sergio Lemus
  • Assistant Professor
  • Director of the Transborder Migration and Ethnography Lab
  • Distinguished Lecture Series Coordinator
Research Areas
  • Cultural Anthropology

Biography


Courses Taught:

  • ANTH 201: Introduction to Anthropology
  • ANTH 210: Social and Cultural Anthropology
  • ANTH 489: The Anthropology of the US-Mexico Border
  • ANTH 489: The Anthropology Migration
  • ANTH 489/689: The Anthropology of Contemporary Mexico
  • ANTH 604: Cultural Method and Theory

Current Graduate Students:

  • Emma Newman (chair)
  • Kevin Johnson (committee member)

Research Interests

Specialty:

  • Ethnography
  • Theories of race
  • Materiality
  • The body
  • Mexican Migration
  • Border Theory
  • Latinx cancer
  • Bio/necro/politics, and class

Current Research Projects:

As of Fall 2021, Dr. Lemus serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. Before joining this role, he was a member of the pioneering ACES Fellow cohort in 2019. Dr. Lemus focuses on the transformative impact of labor on Mexican migrant communities. His upcoming book, Los Yarderos: Mexican Yard Workers in Transborder Chicago, will be published by the University of Illinois Press as part of their Latinos in Chicago and the Midwest series in May 2025. This work explores how Mexican yard workers have shaped and been shaped by their experiences in a changing economic landscape.

Dr. Lemus is also researching the intersection of health and culture among Mexican immigrants, specifically how working-class Latinos navigate living with cancer. This study sheds light on the broader socioeconomic and political factors that influence how Latino/a cancer patients are perceived and treated in the U.S.

Overall, Dr. Lemus' research delves into immigration through three key lenses: the experiences of Mexicans across borders, the cultural dynamics within these communities, and the impact of health and disease on class, gender, and shifting political contexts. Dr. Lemus is currently accepting graduate students with similar research interests.

Educational Background

  • PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015

Selected Publications

  • Lemus, Sergio. "Performing Power en Las Yardas (at the Yards): The Body, Capitalist Discipline, and the Making of Mexican Yardero Lives in South Chicago." Anthropology of Work Review 38, no. 2 (2017): 104-112.
  • Clement, Viviane, Sergio Lemus, and Emma Newman. "In search of health: medical tourism at the US-Mexico border/lands." Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 22, no. 1 (2024): 118-136.
  • Lemus, Sergio, Díaz, Vanessa, and Ryan Mann-Hamilton. "Uncertain Future (s): Latinidad, Anthropology, and Institutions." (2022).