Professor Emeritus Sutti Ortiz Koch has passed away
Professor Emeritus Sutti Ortiz Koch (1929-2022) passed away peacefully in Lexington, MA, on June 27, 2022, after a long illness. She leaves her husband, Ehud Koch, of Lexington; her son, Daniel Koch; daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Vittori Koch; grandson, Cy Vittori-Koch; and granddaughter, Zoe Vittori-Koch, all of Jamaica Plain, MA. Sutti taught in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University from 1984-2000, and was chair from 1985-1988. These were years during which the Department underwent a significant expansion and consolidation, and Sutti played a leading role in that development. Prior to coming to Boston, she had taught briefly at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she developed an interest in Latin American peasants and market dynamics early on in her intellectual career. She attended the University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, and the London School of Economics where she received a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and was a lecturer from 1963-1969. One of the leading economic anthropologists of her generation, she was a co-founder and president of the Society for Economic Anthropology, and editor of the proceedings of its first conference, Economic Anthropology: Topics and Theories (1983). With Susan Lees, she also edited the proceedings of the Society’s decennial conference, Economy as Process (1992). She is the author of Uncertainties in Peasant Farming (1973), Harvesting Coffee, Bargaining Wages: Rural Labor Markets in Columbia, 1975-1990 (1999), and of numerous articles on economic anthropology and development, agrarian change, peasant sociopolitical organization and decision making, and rural labor markets. For all in the Department who knew her, Sutti will be remembered for her rigor in matters of research and teaching, her dedication to students, her trademark wit, her generous smile, and her delicious and elegant meals. (Remembrance by Bob Hefner, photo from the Boston Globe)
