David Syring

David Michael Syring is an American anthropologist and Department Head and Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Diego (https://www.sandiego.edu/cas/directory/biography.php?profile_id=16080). He is known for his works on the Saraguro people.

Career Syring received his BA from Cornell College (Mount Vernon, IA) in 1989 and his PhD from Rice University in 1997. He is a former editor-in-chief of Anthropology and Humanism. During his career at the University of Minnesota Duluth, he developed a Participatory Media Lab with Mitra Emad (Professor of Anthropology at UMD). In 2025 he moved to become Anthropology Department head at the University of San Diego.

Books The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance. Routledge Press 2024. (co-edited with Lauren Miller) With the Saraguros: The Blended Life in a Transnational World. University of Texas Press 2015 Places in the World a Person Could Walk: Family, Stories, Home and Place in the Texas Hill Country. University of Texas Press 2001