Core Faculty

Education 

Ph.D. 2007, New York University, Anthropology
Certificate Program 2005, New York University, Culture and Media
M.A. 2001, University of Copenhagen, Anthropology
B.A. 1998, University of Copenhagen, Anthropology

Research Interests

Migration and (Im)mobilities, Detention and Deportation, Borders, Citizenship, Surveillance and Technology, Visual Anthropology, Ritual and Performance, Affect Theory, Peru, Ecuador, Latin America, Latinx Studies

Biographical Information

Professor Ulla D. Berg is an Associate Professor at the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Anthropology and former Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Rutgers (2015-2021). As a sociocultural and visual anthropologist specializing in Latin America and in Latino communities in the U.S., Prof. Berg's research focuses on historical and contemporary processes and experiences of migration and mobility within Latin America and between this region and the United States. Her first book, Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S., examined how transnational communicative practices and forms of exchange produce new forms of kinship and sociality across multiple borders among racialized global labor migrants. She has also edited several edited volumes including El Quinto Suyo: Transnacionalidad y Formaciones Diaspóricas en la Migración Peruana (with Karsten Paerregaard), Transnational Citizenship Across the Americas (with Robyn Rodriguez), Migración (with Irére Ceja and Soledad Alvarez Velasco), Latinas/os in New Jersey: Histories, Communities, and Cultures (with Aldo Lauria Santiago), and Elizabeth Detention Center: A Social History of Immigration Detention in New Jersey and the United States (with Carolina Sánchez Boe). Her book, Figures of Deportation, is forthcoming with Duke University Press.

Berg is currently working on two new research projects: The first is a collaborative project with Ana Ramos-Zayas (Yale University) on the migrant “crisis” and the concept of sheltering in New York City. The second project is a study of AI-assisted technologies in South American migration and border governance.

Prof. Berg is an active member of several professional organizations. She was the Program Co-Chair for the LASA Congress 2023 in Vancouver and currently co-convenes EASA’s Anthropology of Confinement Network. She regularly contributes to local organizations involved in immigrant rights including as board member of First Friends of New Jersey and New York and Envision Freedom Fund (formerly the Brooklyn Bail Fund).

Undergraduate Courses Regularly Taught

Publications

Books

	2025. Latinas/os en New Jersey: Histories, Commmunities, and Cultures. Edited with Aldo Lauria Santiago. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Award: Best Edited Work 2025, New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance. Award: New Jersey Historical Commission’s 2025 Richard P. McCormick Prize
	2021. Migración. Edited by Iréri Ceja, Soledad Alvarez Velasco and Ulla Berg. Colección Palabras Clave. Ciudad de Mexico: CLACSO & UAM Cuajimalpa
	2016. Sujetos Móviles:Raza, Migración y Pertenencia en el Perú y los Estados Unidos. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
	2015. Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S. New York University Press.
	2013.Transnational Citzenship Across the Americas. Eds. Ulla D. Berg and Robyn Rodriguez. London and New York: Routledge
	2005. El Quinto Suyo: Transnacionalidad y Formaciones Diasporicas en la Migración Peruana [The Fifth Region: Transnationality and Diasporic Formations in Peruvian Migration]. Eds. Ulla Berg and Karsten Paerregaard. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

Recent Articles

• 2025. Berg, Ulla D., Carolina Sánchez Boe, and Darren Byler. “Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue: Global Futures of Digital Confinement,” Special issue of Surveillance and Society, Vol. 23(4): 391-397
• 2022. Berg, Ulla D., Sarah Tosh, and K. Sebastian León. Remote Ethnography in Carceral Settings: Local Configurations of Migrant Detention during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Ethnography, online first: https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211072414
• 2022. Berg, Ulla D. and Gioconda Herrera. Transnational Families and Return in the Age of Deportation: The Case of Indigenous Ecuadorian Migrants. Global Networks, Vol 22(1):36-50 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/glob.12323.
• 2021. Tosh, Sarah R., Ulla D. Berg, and K. Sebastian León. 2021. Migrant Detention and COVID-19: Pandemic Responses in Four New Jersey Detention Centers. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 9(1): 44- 62. https://doi.org/10.1177/23315024211003855
• 2019. Berg, Ulla D. Documenting Latinx Lives: Visual Anthropology and Latinx Studies. Latino Studies 17(1):108-117. DOI 10.1057/s41276-018-00170-y
• 2015 “Racializing Affect: A Theoretical Proposition.” Co-authored with Ana Ramos-Zayas. Current Anthropology, Vol. 56, No. 5 (October 2015)

Book Chapters

• 2026. Ramos-Zayas, Ana and Ulla D. Berg. “Racialized Affect: Endurance and Transformation of a Theoretical Perspective.” In J. Rahier and J. Pierre (eds): The Cambridge Handbook on Race and Ethnicity, pp. 317-338. Cambridge University Press.
• 2024. Berg, Ulla D. El poder de los milagros: migración transnacional y religiosidad entre los peruanos en Nueva York. In Alejandro Málaga (ed): Qué soles se acercaban al pasado: Homenaje a Luis Millones. Lima: Biblioteca National del Perú / Universidad Cesar Vallejo.
• 2023. Berg, Ulla D. COVID-19 and Immobility Across the Americas: A Hemispheric Affective Public. In M. Lünenborg and B. Röttger-Rössler (eds). Affective Publics: Places, Network, Media. London and New York: Routledge.
• 2023. Berg, Ulla D. COVID-19 and Spaces of Confinements. In T. Politano (eds.): The Year That Changed Everything: 2020 at Rutgers and Beyond. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
• 2023. Herrera, Gioconda and Ulla D. Berg, Vulnerability and (Im)mobilities: US Deportation and Post-deportation Lives among Ecuadorian Transnational Families. In D. Bryceson, J. Cienfuegos and R. Brandhorst (eds): Handbook of Transnational Families Around the World: Entangled Inequalities, Gender Roles, and New Actors on the Global Scale, pp. 299-311. Springer, Sociology and Social Research Series [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-15278-8_19]
• 2022. Berg, Ulla D. and Lucía Pérez-Martínez. The Legality of (Im)mobility: Migration, Coyoterismo and Indigenous Justice in Southern Ecuador. In Herrera G. and C. Gómez (eds): Migration in South America, pp. 145-166. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11061-0_7
• 2021. Berg, Ulla D. The Afterlife of U.S. Disciplining Institutions: Transnational Structures of (Im)mobility among Peruvian Deportees. In Rúa and Ramos-Zayas (eds): Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies, 392-403. New York and London: New York University Press.

Films

• Domingo de Ramos. Documentary-in-progress on the Peruvian poet Domingo de Ramos (director and producer)
• Waiting for Miracles (2003). Documentary that follows a Peruvian Catholic brotherhood as it prepares for its yearly procession honoring the Lord of Miracles in NYC. This film explores the power of faith in the lives of immigrants in New York City (Director, Producer, and editor. NYU, Culture and Media)

Online Multimedia Projects

• 2020. Covid-19 y (In)movilidad en las Américas / Covid-19 and (Im)mobility in the Americas. A collective online archive about the impact of the global pandemic on mobile populations and migratory situations across the Americas: https://www.inmovilidadamericas.org/
• 2019. Documenting Latinx Lives. On-line archive of the student documentary films made in the video production seminar “Documenting Latino Lives” at Rutgers University (available at: https://vimeo.com/album/5141847

Media Appearances

• 2025. “Hanging our as an Anthropologist,” Institute Instances. Institute for Advanced Study, 2025. https://www.ias.edu/ideas/hanging-out-anthropologist.
• 2025. “On TikTok, every migrant is living the American Dream.” By Jordan Salama. The New Yorker. January 6, 2025.
• 2024. “Five SAS Faculty Members Receive Fellowships with the Institute for Advanced Study.” School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University.
• 2023. “Rutgers scholars examine the issues surrounding Elizabeth Detention Center.” By John Chadwick. School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University. October 27, 2023
• "4 posibles razones de por qué se multiplicó por 4 el número de peruanos que abandonan el
  país." [Four possible reasons why the number of Peruvians who left the country multiplied by four]. BBC Mundo.