Anita Carrasco is an environmental anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at Luther College, USA. She received her PhD in cultural anthropology with a concentration in applied anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2011. Anita is a member of the American Anthropological Association and the Latin American Studies Association. Her research interests include extractive industries, corporate social responsibility, environmental impacts, mining company-indigenous community relations, and political ecology.

Her research for over a decade has focused on community relations with the mining industry and the significance of indigenous and industrial water rights in this relationship in the Atacama Desert of Chile. More recently she has been exploring Atacameño indigenous peoples and their recognition of nature’s influence on human existence, and the role of culture in the balance of nature and social relations that transcend an artificial human–nature divide.