Born and raised in Marin County, California, I moved to Denver in 2008. My mom is from Chicago with roots in German/Irish culture and my father is from the Sierra region in Ecuador. I’m a first-generation college graduate. In 1991-1993, I lived and studied in Nigeria where I received a master’s degree in political science from the University of Ibadan. To continue my global education, I earned a second master’s degree with a specialization in labor and employment studies at the Institute for Social Studies in Den Haag, The Netherlands in 1995. For my doctoral work in anthropology at the University of California Irvine I focused on the livelihoods of tobacco farmers and farm workers, labor union struggles and corporate accountability issues in Malawi’s tobacco growing sector. I am an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department, University of Colorado Denver.
In 2024, the US Fulbright Specialist Program accepted me on its roster of specialists (a three year position).
In 2024, I was designated a Senior Fellow, Centre for Public Health Research, Manbhum Ananda Ashram Nityananda Trust (MANT), West Bengal, India
Recent publications include "Cannabis Workers' Counterstories and Stigma Reduction in Colorado" (PDF) Voices in Mexico (2023), the chapter co-authored with David Vergara, “Cannabis Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives: A Critical Approach to Research and Practice,” in The Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Cannabis Research (2021, PDF); “A Labor Studies Approach to Cannabis,” in The Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Cannabis Research (2021, PDF), and the manuscript co-authored with Jassy Grewal, “Health and Safety in the Legal Cannabis Industry Before and During COVID-19, New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy (2020, PDF).
In 2024, my colleague Dr. Aaraón Díaz Mendiburo, Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte (CISAN), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and I published the co-edited collection of four books Breaking Stigmas: Art and Cannabis in North America.
- Volume 1. Activisms
- Volume 2. Public Space and Private Spaces
- Volume 3. Audiovisuals: Films, Television, Images and Photographs
- Volume 4. Narratives and Music
Natalie Underberg-Goode, Professor in the University of Central Florida, and I are co-editing the book Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice, Routledge, planned for 2025.
I’m a filmmaker and produce the web-based television show called Getting High on Anthropology. Filmmaking is integrated in my research and creative projects at CU Denver. In 2022-2024, I administered digital storytelling projects about experiences of university students, staff and faculty members who self-identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), as well as first-generation students of color. Also, I am analyzing 76 short videos about opioid overdose reversals and naloxone to promote harm reduction and reduce stigma against drug users. Funds for the project received from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ‘Overdose Data to Action’ grant. For additional details visit the project webpage Naloxone Champions.
In 2023-24, a team of university undergraduate and graduate students and I completed 100 recorded interviews with people of color about their experiences and concerns related to psilcobyin ("magic mushrooms") as part of the study "Psilocybin Use Among BIPOC Community Members in Colorado" (COMIRB #22-1797). In 2025, student research assistants and i are analyzing the data and completing a repository of video interviews with study participants. Additional details are on the project web page.
Through a Community Grant Program Award from the Source Research Foundation in 2024, I organized a psychedelic-related speaker series in 2024 with 11 people of color in Colorado focused on topics such as decolonizing psychedelics, indigenous rights, structural racism, white supremacy, medicalization and corporations. Goals of the project were to increase community awareness of BIPOC-related issues and concerns in psychedelic spaces in colorado, and provide educational material to policy makers. The community partner is BIPOC Psychedelic. To learn more, visit this link.
My free time is spent with my wife Michelle and two boys (ages 20 and 17). Hobbies include bicycling, hiking, traveling and making videos.
Postdoctoral Training Fellowship, University of Colorado Denver Education, Training and Career Development Core of the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, Subject: Digital Storytelling and Health Equity in Colorado, 2008-2010
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, Subject: Health Policy and Global Tobacco Control, 2006-2008
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, Subject: Health Policy and Global Tobacco Control, 2004-2006
Ph.D. Anthropology Department, University of California, Irvine, Subject: Cultural Anthropology, Dissertation: "Thank You for Smoking': Corporate Power and Tobacco Worker Struggles in Malawi, 1996-2004
M.A. Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands, Subject: Employment and Labor Studies, Thesis: 'Labor and Democratization in Malawi,' 1994-1995
M.S. Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, Subject: Political Science; Thesis: 'The Political Economy of State Creation in Nigeria, 1992-1993
B.S. College of Business, San Francisco State University, California, Subject: Business Administration, 1987-1989
Underberg-Goode N and Otañez M. Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice, Routledge (in production)
Otanez M, Mukherjee N, Bhattacharya P, Khatoon S, Mahapatra B, and Das P. “Bidi Rollers in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, India: A Photographic Essay,” in N Underberg-Goode and M Otañez, eds., Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice, Routledge (in production)
Otanez M. “The Anthropology of Organic Theater: Interview with the Romero Theatre Troupe’s Jim Walsh,” in N Underberg-Goode and M Otañez, eds., Exploring Digital Ethnography: From Principles to Practice, Routledge (in production)
Otañez M and Nkuna M. "Legal Medicinal Cannabis in Malawi: A Critical Cannabis Studies Approach to Agricultural Change in Malawi," International Journal of Drug Policy (in production)
Mendiburo AD, and Otañez M, eds., Art-Based Narratives as Resources to End Cannabis Stigmatization in North America [four volumes], Breaking Stigmas: Art and Cannabis in North America [four volumes], Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte (CISAN) Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) 2024
- Volume 1. Activisms
- Volume 2. Public Space and Private Spaces
- Volume 3. Audiovisuals: Films, Television, Images and Photographs
- Volume 4. Narratives and Music
Otañez M, "Cannabis Workers' Counterstories and Stigma Reduction in Colorado," Voices in Mexico, 2023
Otañez M, “A Labor Studies Approach to Cannabis,” J Meisel and D Corva, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Cannabis Research, 2021
Otañez M, Vergara D, “Cannabis Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives: A Critical Approach to Research and Practice,” J Meisel and D Corva, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Cannabis Research, 2021
Otañez M, Grewal J, “Health and Safety in the Legal Cannabis Industry Before and During COVID-19, New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy (Epub ahead of print 30 November), 1-13, 2020
Gasser A. "International Labour Organization (ILO) ends tobacco industry funding," Tobacco Control Blog, 1 December 2019 (contributing author)
Otañez M and Walsh J, ' Digital Storytelling and Organic Theater: Pedagogies in 21st Century Learning,' Arianne Rourke and Vaughan Rees, eds. Transformative Pedagogies in the Visual Domain, Common Ground Publishing, 2018
Otañez M “Convergencia,” Future Rural Archive. Last Chance Press and Jap Sam Books, The Netherlands, 2018
Otañez M, “Digital storytelling: Using first-person videos about food in research and advocacy,” John Brett and Janet Chrzan, eds., Research Methods for the Anthropological Study of Food and Nutrition, Berghahn, 2017
"Guide to Worker Health and Safety in the Marijuana Industry," Marijuana Occupational Health and Safety Group, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 2017 (contributing author)
Gubrium A, Harper K, Otañez M, eds., Participatory Visual and Digital Research in Action, Left Coast Press: California 2015 (companion website)
Otañez M, Lakota W, ‘Digital storytelling: Using videos to increase social wellness,’ in J Cohen and L Johnson, eds., Video filmmaking as psychotherapy: Research and practice, Routledge: New York, 2015
Otañez M, Guerrero A, ‘Digital storytelling and the viral hepatitis project,’ A Gubrium, K Harper and M Otañez, eds., Participatory visual and digital research in Action, Left Coast Press: California, 2015
Otañez M, Graen L, “‘Gentlemen, Why Not Suppress the Prices’: Global Leaf Companies Harm Rural Livelihoods in Malawi,” Wardie Lappan, Natacha Lecours, Daniel Buckles, eds., Tobacco Control and Tobacco Farming: Separating Myth from Reality, Anthem Press and International Development Research Centre: London and Ottowa, 2014
Otañez M, Glantz G, “Social Responsibility in Tobacco Production? Tobacco Companies Use of Green Supply Chains to Obscure the Real Costs of Tobacco Farming,” Tobacco Control (Epub ahead of print, 19 April), 2011
Otañez M. "The Tobacco Trap: Obstacles to Trade Unionism in Malawi." In P Durrenberger and K Reichart, eds. The Anthropology of Labor Unions. University Press of Colorado, 2010
Otañez M, Glantz G, “Trafficking in Tobacco Farm Culture: Tobacco Companies Use of Video Imagery to Undermine Health Policy,” Visual Anthropology Review, 24 (1): 1-24, 2009
Otañez M, Glantz G, Mamudu H, “Tobacco Companies Use of Developing Countries’ Economic Reliance on Tobacco to Lobby Against Global Tobacco Control: The Case of Malawi,” American Journal of Public Health, 99 (10): 1759-71, 2009
Geist H, Otañez M, and Kapito J. "The tobacco industry in Malawi: a globalized driver of local land change." Land Change Modifications in the Developing World. Berlin, Germany: Springer (2008): 251-68
Otañez M. "Social disruption caused by tobacco growing," Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, UC San Francisco, 2008
Otañez M, Glantz G, Mamudu H, “Global Leaf Companies Control the Tobacco Market in Malawi,” Tobacco Control, 16: 261-9, 2007
Otañez M. "The Smoking Wallet An Anthropologist Meets Transnational Tobacco Corporations in Malawi," Truitt A, Senders S, eds., Encounters with Money in the Field, Berg Publishers: Oxford, United Kingdom, 69-81, 2007
Otañez M, Muggli M, Hurt R, Glantz G, “Eliminating Child Labour in Malawi: A British American Tobacco Corporate Responsibility Project to Sidestep Tobacco Labor Exploitation,” Tobacco Control. 15: 224-30, 2006
Otañez M, “Economic Dependence and Democratization: The Case of the Tobacco Industry,” Immink B, Lembani S, Ott M, Peters-Berries C, eds., From Freedom to Empowerment: Ten Years of Democratization in Malawi, Lilongwe, Malawi: Forum for Dialogue and Peace, 120-9
Ethnographic Methods, Principles, Ethics and Critiques
Fieldwork Methods
Foundations in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Psychedelic Anthropology
Cannabis Culture
Cultural Diversity in the Modern World
Culture and the Human Experience
Current Theory in Ethnography
Global Health and Nutrition in Malawi, Africa (study abroad course)
Industrial Hemp and Medicinal Cannabis in The Netherlands (study abroad course)
