Chelsey Kivland is a professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College. As a cultural anthropologist, she strives to understand how and why people find meaning in power and conflict. She is fascinated by the way power is both feared and desired, contested and embraced, and the culturally unique ways in which people fight for as well as against power. Her current research focuses on local forms of leadership in a Haitian ghetto, and attempts to uncover the multiple and contradictory ways people compete for control over an area. She writes and teaches about violence, rituals of power, grassroots organizing, insecure cities, and Haiti.