This year, six scholars were selected to receive the 2022 Carole H. Browner Latin American Studies Fellowship Fund for Travel (LASFFT) award. This award is given to support the travel of undergraduate or graduate students from anywhere in Latin America to attend the AAA Annual Meeting.
Jorge Molina Aguilar
Jorge Molina Aguilar is a Salvadoran-born research professor in the department of research and pedagogical training at Don Bosco University in El Salvador, Central America. He’s also a Phd candidate in social sciences in El Salvador. Jorge studies chronic diseases and mourning processes in the social sciences with an emphasis on medical anthropology. Aguilar is a member of the International Scientific Committee at the Self-medication Observatory of Rosario University in Bogotá, Colombia and the Experts Committee at the Knowmad Institute in Johannesburg, Germany. He writes on Nawat-Náhuat epistemology and pedagogy, self-medication, death, and grief. Jorge is currently researching the ontology and pedagogy of energy, the pedagogy of geography regarding conflict and war, and a book on the pedagogies of death.
Maria Belén López
Maria Belén López is a PhD student in social anthropology in the Interdisciplinary School of Higher Social Studies at National University of San Martin (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and professor of Introduction to Anthropology. She is a doctoral fellow in the participatory action research project, “Socio-environmental strategies to strengthen the rights of migrant women workers in the Reconquista Area” for the International Development Research Center (Canada) and the National University of San Martin (Argentina). Her research interests are gender relations and sexuality, care issues, migration and environment. She is currently exploring the participation of migrant women in the environmental care at the settlements of the Río Reconquista basin in San Martín district.
Thainá Gondim Lúcio
Thainá Gondim Lúcio was born in the city of Goiânia-GO in Brazil. She graduated with a degree in psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Goiás in 2020. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in social anthropology at the Federal University of Goiás, working in the research area of Body and Social Markers of Difference, investigating the (re)construction of masculinities in a reflexive group for men alleged to be perpetrators of domestic violence. Thainá is also an investigator at the Center for Studies and Research on Crime and Violence (NECRIVI) at UFG, working on a project to analyze databases on the situation of women in Goiânia and produce subsidies for the creation of a Women ́s Observatory.
Arturo Mendieta Navarro
Arturo Mendieta Navarro is an economist and anthropologist from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). He is currently pursuing his master’s degree in anthropology with the study plan “trAndeS: Advanced Studies on Inequalities and Sustainability” at the of Institute of Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin and the PUCP. He studies issues related to institutions, inequality and the environment in Andean-Amazonian spaces from historical, ethnographic, and economic perspectives. His most recent research work on mining environmental liabilities was published in World Development (2021) and socio-natural dynamics in Amazonian protected areas in Forest Policy and Economics (2021). He is currently working on a research about historical inequalities in the alpaca fiber markets in the southern Peruvian Andes.
María José Díaz Reyes
María José Díaz Reyes is a Nicaraguan doctoral student in social anthropology at the Center for Research and Higher Studies (CIESAS) in Mexico City. María is enrolled in the specialty of semiotic anthropology where she developed the research “Discourses of resistance: Nicaraguans against State violence (2018-2020).” Through ethnography, she tries to understand the social meanings that State violence and social resistance display. She developed 15 years of experience in the management of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and in research with an emphasis on programs and projects linked to local community development; food security, risk management, citizen participation, sexual rights, reproductive rights, municipalism and public policies, and youth culture.
Débora Gerbaudo Suárez
Débora Gerbaudo Suárez is a PhD Fellow of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET) and performs research at IDAES School in the National University of San Martin (UNSAM). She has an MA in Social Sciences from the National University of General Sarmiento (UNGS), as well as a BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). Débora studies the generational dimension in migrations, focusing on the dynamics of the Paraguayan population and their descendants in Argentina. As part of the Nucleus of Migratory Studies (NEMI) and the Social Studies Program on Gender, Childhood and Youth (CEDESI), both based at UNSAM, she explores the links between age, gender and space to visualize urban and environmental inequalities among young migrants. She carries out ethnographic work with transnational communities living in areas of urban segregation and environmental degradation within the Participatory Action Research project “Migrantas en Reconquista” (UNSAM-IDRC Canada).