My dissertation “Affective Politics of Belonging” examines how claims to land and houses are articulated in affective idioms that, in conjunction with state plans in Bolivarian Venezuela, seek to transcend, yet are encapsulated within, market and rights-based forms of inclusion. By focusing on gender, property and citizenship in “Pioneer Camps” or “New Socialist Communities” this…

How does Latin American literature dialogue with the Latin American medical theory of its time? How do these physicians and writers get involved in the political destinies of their respective countries? Although some studies of this nature have been done on Argentina, there are no comprehensive studies unraveling the way in which physicians understand the…

During the summer of 2018, I will be continuing my fieldwork research in Puerto Rico, specifically in the Santurce metro area of San Juan. As an anthropologist, I am interested in the semiotic ideologies shaping urban spaces, at the critical junction between local gentrification processes and global processes of dispossession. These questions have become more…

During periods of economic crisis, discourses and practices produced within the social sphere that seek to represent subjectivities in either collective or individual ways can be transformed. Therefore, political institutions’ capacity to explain how society is, how it works and, most importantly, what it should be, tend to stall. In situations such as these, capital…

Elaine’s research in Venezuela in summer 2018 will continue her dissertation fieldwork conducted from 2016-2017. She plans to continue her research on música llanera, or music from the interior plains region, specifically regarding questions of transmission and pedagogy. Her research is focused in particular on the program Alma Llanera, a project developed within Venezuela’s national…