My research as a political anthropologist and historical anthropologist has examined the tensions and contradictions of nation and state formation in highland Ecuador in the first half of the twentieth century. I have explored this general interest through such projects as: an analysis of how the construction of the national railway reorganized regional, ethnic and class relations (in my 1998 book); a consideration of racial and national ideologies especially in the triangular relation between Indigenous peasants, agrarian elites and state actors (my 2007 co-edited volume and various articles); an exploration of how women participated in state formation as both objects and agents of gendered social policy (2012 book); and most recently, a new book published in 2023 that takes this program in new directions by examining the everyday practices of the Public Health Service to probe how it is that the state comes to seem real and functional and present in people’s lives. My current book project is a return, content-wise, to earlier interests in the relations among Indigenous peasants, large landholders, and a range of different state agents in highland Ecuador, as way to explore my approach to historical anthropology.