The Transnational Southwest rethinks the U.S. Southwest by situating it within hemispheric and global circuits of empire. Rather than treating the region as an isolated region, the book shows how it was actively constructed through the work of anthropologists, archaeologists, museums, universities, and cultural institutions whose authority depended on transnational exchange.

Focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the book examines how U.S. scholars and institutions extracted knowledge, artifacts, and cultural meaning from Indigenous communities across Mexico and Central America, translating them into narratives of Southwestern identity. These processes naturalized U.S. claims to land, history, and cultural stewardship while obscuring the colonial violence that made such claims possible.

Through archival research, intellectual history, and place-based analysis, The Transnational Southwest reveals how academic knowledge functioned as infrastructure for empire. The book argues that the Southwest was not simply influenced by transnational forces—it was produced through them, making the region a key site for understanding how empire operates through expertise, culture, and institutional power.