January 1, 2001 New Faculty Bob W. White UCSC Photo Services Assistant Professor of Anthropology Bob White is a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses on the relationship between popular culture and politics in Central Africa. His primary research has examined the relationship of mutual dependence between popular musicians and politicians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire). His work also explores how the modernist stylings of this pan-African form of music have kept it from gaining broad acceptance among western consumers of "world music." White earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from McGill University and his B.A. in anthropology/international studies from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He comes to UCSC from the Smithsonian Institution, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.