The Anthropology Department’s upcoming colloquium featuring Dr. Florence Babb from UNC at Chapel Hill takes place on Friday, March 13th. Dr. Babb is at work on a book based on ethnographic research in three locations in Peru, critically engaging racial and gender inequalities, inclusion and exclusion, and national identity. Scaling Differences: Place, Race, and Gender in Andean Peru examines the contradictory meanings of being Andean. Social standing in Peru is measured in inverse proportion to the altitude of one’s origins, with the high Andes having low status and Lima, at sea level, holding the greatest prestige. Ambivalence over social origins is evident at the national level, as Andeanness is embraced as a source of deep cultural heritage, but scorned for its contemporary manifestations, in the rural highlands or transplanted in urban and coastal centers. Geographic mobility is a way in which rural and urban communities push back against longstanding social inequalities.