Tani Adams

Founder and board president of the International Institute of Learning for Social Reconciliation (Guatemala City), Adams is investigating the long-term impacts of the Guatemalan civil war, which ended in 1996 with a toll of some 200,000 dead, more than one million refugees and countless atrocities. Adams is examining how one Guatemalan indigenous community—San Martin Jilotepeque—is rebuilding by comparing life before, during and after the Guatemalan civil war.

Adams has spent more than ten years (1996-2007) as the executive director for the Center for Regional Mesoamerican Research. From 1988-1994, she was executive director/founder of Greenpeace Latin America, with six offices throughout Latin America, and has served on the boards of Greenpeace Mexico, Central America, Brazil and spent a year in Washington, D.C. (1988-1989), serving as the president of the board at Greenpeace USA and on several boards including various Greenpeace organizations, the Foundation for National Progress, Rural Coalition and Fundacion Propaz. She was also the founder/executive director of the Texas Center for Policy Studies. She has received research fellowships from AVINA Foundation (2006), University of California, Santa Cruz (1998) and the National Science Foundation.

She holds a B.A. in liberal arts from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Publications:

• "Strategies for Opening Dialogue about Racism and Discrimination in Guatemala: Concepts Behind the Exposition 'Why Are We Like We Are?,'" key presentation to Learning Circle on How to Teach about Racial, Ethnic, Gender and Other Kinds of Social Exclusions (Ford Foundation, 2006).
• Imágenes de Guatemala: 50 Fotográfos de la Fototeca de CIRMA y la Comunidad Fotográfica Guatemalteca 1843 - 2005, co-editor (CIRMA, Guatemala 2005).
• Por Que Estamos Como Estamos? (collection coordinator) and The Preface: Toward Creating an Agenda for Dialogue about Ethnic Inequality and Discrimination in Guatemala and Central America (author). Collection and book project (CIRMA, Guatemala, 2004).
• "Temas invisibles y descuidados en el estudio de etnicidad en Guatemala: una propuesta para futuras investigaciones," in State, Nation and Ethnic Relations IV, edited by Mutsuo Yamada and Carlos Iván Degregori (Osaka: Museum of Ethnology, 2000).