Robin Balliger is Chair of Urban Studies and associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies. She earned a PhD and MA in Anthropology from Stanford University and a BA in Music from the University of California at Berkeley. Her research and teaching interests include globalization, media and popular culture, consumption, geography, music and sound, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and the Caribbean and Latin America. Balliger has received fellowships and awards including Fulbright, MacArthur, National Science Foundation, Mellon, Littlefield, Wenner Gren, and the Textor Award for Outstanding Anthropological Creativity. Her recent publications include: "The Sound of Resistance" in The Global Resistance Reader, "The Politics of Cultural Value and the Value of Cultural Politics: International Intellectual Property Legislation in Trinidad" in Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival, and "Chutney Soca Music in Trinidad: Indian Ethno-Nationalist Expression in Transnational Perspective" in Globalization, Diaspora, and Caribbean Popular Culture. She organized and chaired a forum on globalization and the arts at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, in conjunction with the exhibition Global Priorities. Balliger’s scholarly interests draw on previous experience as a professional musician, world music DJ, and the director of renowned San Francisco arts collective and performance space, Komotion International.