L. Kaifa Roland

Kaifa Roland is currently Director of Global Black Studies and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Clemson University. Her research is in the area of cultural anthropology with a focus Cuba on the African diaspora in the Caribbean. She has topical interests in tourism, entrepreneurship, national identity, racial and gender constructions, popular cultural practices, and critiques of capitalism.

Kaifa Roland joins Clemson from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she has been Associate Professor of Anthropology since 2006 and served as Chair of Women and Gender Studies since 2020.

Roland holds a B.A. in Third World Studies at Oberlin College, an M.A. in African Studies from Howard University, and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.

Her career as an instructor began at Duke University, where she taught courses in Contemporary Culture in Cuba and the Caribbean. After Duke, she was a visiting instructor and visiting professor in anthropology at Kenyon College. She has been on faculty at University of Colorado at Boulder since 2006.

As a cultural anthropologist, Roland’s research has focused on the Caribbean, specifically Cuba. Belonging is a central theme of her book, “Cuban Color in Tourism and La Lucha: An Ethnography of Racial Meanings,” as well as of multiple articles and chapters she has penned describing the black experience.