Research

My book manuscript, Invisible Violence: Narratives of Exclusion in Latin American Literature and Film, examines cultural texts that respond to the discrepancy between global discourses of progress and actual experiences of poverty and marginalization in contemporary Latin American cities. My attention to peripheric sites of violence across the Andes, the Hispanic Caribbean, and Lusophone America reveals a networked system of power and economic violence that has global proportions. Divided into three parts regarding society, body, and discourse, Intangible Violence draws on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to explain the unique way in which Latin American cultural production constructs meaning out of exclusion.

My interest in violence, discourse, and representation has led me to my second book project, Filming the Andes: Representation and Intercultural Conflict in Latin American Film, about the search for an ethical representation of Andean indigenous communities in film and media.  In a region where the central indigenous component tends to be rendered invisible, anachronic, or caricaturesque by dominant media, I ask how Andean filmic stereotypes function and why certain filmmakers are able to critique or transcend racist paradigms for representing Andean peoples while others continue to reproduce an alienating discourse that has a negative impact in society.