People

Chair of the Latin American Studies program

Steering Committee

Core Faculty

  • Aleksa Alaica (Anthropology). Anthropological archaeologist. Human-animal interactions among the Moche cultural phase of the North Coast of present-day Peru. Wari state expansion, food security and interregional interaction in the Nasca region.
  • Jon Beasley-Murray (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Latin American cultural, literary, and political history; the Latin American left and social movements; ruins; film.
  • Kim Beauchesne (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Colonial Latin American literature and culture; postcolonial theory; notions of hybridity and multiculturalism; Trans-Atlantic/Trans-Pacific Studies; the politics of utopia in Latin America; literature and human rights.
  • Benjamin Bryce (History). Migration. Health. Argentina. Southern Cone. Global History.
  • Maxwell Cameron (Political Science). Comparative politics (Latin America) and international political economy; democratization in Latin America.
  • María Carbonetti (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Practices of distinction, cultural, symbolic, and material consumption; community engagement; Spanish for Community.
  • Anna Casas Aguilar (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Literature, film, transatlantic studies, feminism, psychoanalysis, Chile, Mexico.
  • María Adelaida Escobar Trujillo (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Transcultural interactions, identity and gender dialogues in and between the cultures of Spain and Latin America.
  • Calla Hummel (Political Science). Trans and nonbinary rights. Relationship between marginalized communities and the state. Comparative political economy, public health, and civil society.
  • Gastón Gordillo (Anthropology). The spatiality of politics; race and ethnicity; Argentina; indigenous groups and criollos of the Gran Chaco; ruins; social memory, place-making, hegemony, borders and transnationality.
  • Elizabeth Lagresa-González (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Early modern Hispanic literature and culture; intersection of gender, visual and material studies.
  • Shaylih Muehlmann (Anthropology). Environmental politics; linguistic anthropology; drug trafficking; indigeneity; water scarcity; the anthropology of the awkward; US-Mexico borderlands; Mexico.
  • Brianne Orr-Alvarez (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Twentieth-century Latin American literature and culture; cultural and political theory; gender and masculinities; revolutionary and post-revolutionary Studies; myth and mythification.
  • Manuel Piña (Art History, Visual Art, and Theory). Global culture and politics; the ways in which visual culture, particularly photography, has historically advanced political agendas.
  • Juanita Sundberg (Geography). Central America; the US-Mexico border; feminist theory, critical race theory, post-humanism, and political ecology.
  • Arturo Victoriano-Martínez (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). Caribbean Literature and Culture.
  • Antje Ziethen (French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies). African literatures and francophone literatures; (urban) space, migration, and gender; literature across the African continent through the lens of transatlantic migration.
  • Jonathan Otto (School of Journalism, Writing and Media). Political ecology and development geographies; Mexico; Knowledge Mobilization, Discourse and Climate Change.

Affiliated Faculty

  • Gage Averill (Arts). Haiti, Haitian music; sound, music and power, music and politics; Caribbean music, steelband; ethnomusicology, world music.
  • Elizabeth Cardoso Fernandes (Koerner Library): Humanities & Social Sciences Librarian, Virtual Reference. Librarian for Latin American Studies, Spanish, Portuguese and Psychology . Brazilian environmental policies. Humanities and Social Sciences, Latin American, Business and Sciences databases.
  • Claudio Ferraz (Economics). Political Economy and Development Economics; governance and accountability in developing countries, how politics affect public service delivery, the effects of electoral rules on political selection, and the role of the state in high crime and violence environments.
  • Denise Ferreira da Silva (The Social Justice Institute). Critical Racial and Ethnic Studies, Feminist Theory, Critical Legal Theory, Political Theory, Moral Philosophy, Postcolonial Studies.
  • Kristen Hopewell (School of Public Policy and Global Affairs). International trade, global governance, industrial policy and development, with a focus on emerging powers, including Brazil.
  • Hiroyuki Kasahara (Economics). Econometrics, International Trade; Chile.
  • Nadja Kunz (School of Public Policy and Global Affairs). Mining, water management,
  • Nuno Porto (Art History, Visual Art, and Theory). Curator, Africa and Latin America, Museum of Anthropology.
  • Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (The Social Justice Institute). Colombia; historical memory and the cultural dimensions of violence; forced migration (internal displacement and refuge); communities, social development and public art.
  • Anthony Shelton (Anthropology and Museum of Anthropology). Critical museology; the incorporation of pre-Columbian ‘art’ into western collections, the non-Western art market, museums and national identity; Mexican and Iberian visual cultures; the influence of evangelisation and politics on the visual cultures of Latin America.
  • Jerry Spiegel (School of Population and Public Health and Liu Institute for Global Issues). The effects of globalization on health; global health and human security; the economic evaluation of interventions; health and equity in Latin America; Ecuador, Cuba.
  • Diane Srivastava (Zoology). Community ecology; the ecology of species diversity; biodiversity, conservation, habitat loss; Costa Rica.
  • Felipe Valencia Caicedo (Economics). Intersection of Development Economics, Economic History and Economic Growth;  particularly interested in economic persistence with an emphasis on Latin America.
  • Ana Vivaldi (Instructor, Sociology and Latin American Studies). Politics of indigeneity and race into inquiries on the production of space and (im)mobilities
  • Hannah Wittman (Land and Food Systems). Rural and environmental sociology; agrarian citizenship; rural agricultural policy; community and rural development; agrarian political economy; social movements.
  • Annalee Yassi (School of Population and Public Health). Infection control in promoting healthy healthcare; HIV, TB and other infectious disease in the healthcare workforce; Ecuador, Cuba.

Affiliated Faculty at UBC Okanagan

  • Anita Girvan (English and Cultural Studies). Cultural Studies; Environmental Humanities; Political Ecology and Environmental Justice; Black and Indigenous Feminist Ecological Thought; Stories, Metaphor; Critical Canadian Studies.
  • James Rochlin (Political Science, UBC Okanagan). Latin American politics and critical security studies; exploration of new conceptions of security in Latin America, including those related to insurgencies, race and class, as well as production of oil.
  • Jessica Stites Mor (History, UBC Okanagan). Argentina, Southern Cone; Latin American cinema, cultural studies; human rights, solidarity, transnationalism, citizenship.

Affiliated Fellows, 2024-25

  • Carolina Navarrete González, Universidad de La Frontera, Chile. Literatura Latinoamericana Contemporánea, Estudios de Género, Estudios de Subjetividades, Narrativas de Mujeres y Escrituras del Yo, Afectos, Posthumanismo y Nuevos Materialismos.

Affiliated Interdisciplinary Programs Administration

  • Jason Lieblang, Director of First-Year & Interdisciplinary Programs for Arts
  • Carmen Radut, First-Year & Interdisciplinary Programs Administrator
  • Kelly Chan, First-Year & Interdisciplinary Programs Coordinator