Amy Rothschild is an anthropologist and sociolegal scholar focused on questions of human rights, genocide, and memory in Southeast Asia. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, San Diego and a J.D. from Yale Law School (she received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania). She is assistant professor of sociolegal studies and politics at Ithaca College.
Her current book manuscript, Victims and Veterans: Memory, Nationalism, and Human Rights in Post-Conflict Timor-Leste, examines the politics of memory of the 24-year Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste. Data for the book comes from work and long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Timor-Leste, beginning in 2002.
Some of the fellowhips and grants Amy has received to conduct her research include the following: a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship; a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant; a University of California San Diego President’s Dissertation Writing Fellowship; a Dan David Prize Scholarship (for Studies on History and Memory); a University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation Dissertation Fellowship; and a University of California Pacific Rim Advanced Graduate Research Fellowship.
Before beginning her Ph.D. in anthropology, Amy lived and worked for years in a variety of countries and contexts in the Global South; she also worked as a consultant for the World Bank.
At IC Amy teaches interdisciplinary courses on law, justice, human rights, genocide, and qualitative research methods.