Current research project:

Animal Bodies, Human Voices: Violence and the Animal Rights Movement in Mexico. This project seeks to understand how animal rights/well-being activists operate in the current context of violence within Mexico. More specifically, I am interested in how such activists describe, explain, combat, and represent violence directed towards non-human animals, in relation to non-human bodies, and to activism centered on humans and human bodies. Looking at how Mexican animal rights/well-being activists frame their efforts, discursively and materially, can potentially inform how we conceptualize the relationship between violence, justice, and human/non-human bodies. I have been conducting fieldwork for this project in Ciudad Juárez since 2017.

I am currently expanding the geographical scope of this project to include Mexico City and Madrid, Spain. The selection of these two cities responds to my current interest in understanding how the discourse of animal rights becomes politicized in contexts of political polarization. In particular I want to understand how animal rights become intertwined with political parties and with increasingly punitive measures. I believe that the comparative approach of this project will provide a framework to understand the changing relevance of animals in politics worldwide.

Results from this research have been published in Cultural Anthropology and in Sapiens.

Completed project:

Migrating, Within and Without: An Ethnography of Internal and Transnational Migration in a Oaxacan Community:

This project, part of my doctoral research, studies migration in a Zapotec community in Oaxaca, Mexico. Based on 20 months of ethnographic research conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico City, and in Oregon (U.S), I found that internal and transnational migrations are interconnected processes shaped by kinship and ideas of femininity and masculinity. I conclude by exploring the ways in which different forms of mobility produce ongoing negotiations that transform gender and social relationships. By highlighting the experiences of internal migrants—especially women who work as domestic employees and men who have joined the military—my research reinvigorates anthropological discussions of migration by problematizing who counts as a migrant. Migration scholars often examine different forms of migration as theoretically and empirically distinct; my project contributes to migration studies by using a conceptual framework that shows how these two forms of migration are interconnected processes.

Some publications that are part of this project are the following:

“Oaxaca in Motion: An Ethnography of Internal, Transnational, and Return Migration” (University of Texas Press, 2022)

““We came for the Cartilla but we stayed for the Tortilla”: Enlisting in the Military as a Form of Migration for Zapotec Men.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (2019)

“Navigating the City: Internal Migration of Oaxacan Indigenous Women.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2017) 43(5):849-865.

“Uncertain futures: The Unfinished Houses of Undocumented Migrants in Oaxaca, Mexico.” American Anthropologist (2017) 119(2):209-222.