My second book, Minerals, Collecting, and Value across the U.S.-Mexico Border (Indiana, 2013) traces the movements of mineral specimens from mines in Mexico through Mexican and U.S. markets, museums, and private collections. The book shows how the two countries have been connected through the circulation of scientific knowledge and luxury collectibles, thus illuminating aspects of U.S. – Mexican transnational space not shown in other scholarship.  The book proposes a theory of value that describes both how things are valued in relation to each other and the pragmatics and politics of how values change over time.

 

 

 

more about minerals:

Why do minerals come in species?  What are the assumptions and implications of different stories–scholarly stories–about minerals and their movements through space?  What kinds of temporalities convene in the lives of minerals?  How are minerals gendered?  Here are a few things I have written about these questions:  

Birth_of_the_Mineral_Species_Aguilarite

The Life and Times of Minerals

Waste_and_Potency_Making_Men_with_Minerals in Guanajuato and Tucson