John Way

Ph.D., Yale University, 2006

Urban space and youth culture in modern Guatemala

J. T. Way (B.A. New York University; M.A., Tulane University; M.A., Ph.D. Yale University) is a Professor of Latin American History in the Department of History. His teaching areas are modern Latin America with an emphasis on globalization and the intersections between cultural, social, and economic history; colonial Latin America; and world history, transnational studies, and urban history.

Before joining the GSU faculty, J. T. Way lived and worked in Latin America for ten years, and served as the Consulting Director of CIRMA—the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica—in Antigua, Guatemala. He was a faculty affiliate of the University of Arizona, and both ran and taught in programs for U.S. university students in Guatemala, where he also founded a school in the Mayan highlands.

J. T.’s first book, _The Mayan in the Mall: Globalization, Development, and the Making of Modern Guatemala_ (Duke University Press, 2012) was awarded the CLR James Award for Best Published Book by the Working Class Studies Association. An urban transnational history, it traces national and international development projects from the 1920s forward and maps them against the history of Guatemala City’s markets and shantytowns. His second book, _Agrotropolis: Youth, Street, and Nation in the New Urban Guatemala_ (University of California Press, 2021), traces the developments of Guatemalan urbanization and youth culture since 1983, focusing on the provinces and placing working-class Maya and mestizo hometowns and creativity at the center of planetary urban history. His current research focuses on violence and the refugee crisis, and he regularly serves as an expert witness in asylum hearings.