Hemispheric Institute Scholars Present Recent Findings
Ten doctoral students across many disciplines in the College of Letters and Science and two students from outside the college will present research done as UC Davis Hemispheric Institute on the Americas Summer Fellowship recipients. The fellowships allowed the students to travel to further their scholarship into diverse topics ranging from music about the Panama Canal to examining human remains for insights into drought and societal collapse in Peru.
The presentations take place in Andrews Conference Room, 2203 Social Sciences and Humanities Building, on March 10 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each presentation will last about 20 minutes, followed by a short Q&A session. The full schedule of presentations is available here.
Ana María Díaz-Pinto
Music
“Reggaetón Culture in Chile: Circuits of Dance, Listening, and Corporeal Political Activism in the City of Santiago”
Díaz-Pinto is looking at an underground party community and its role in a developing musical and political subculture in Santiago, Chile.
Cristobal Emilfork
Anthropology
“Human-Cryospheric Relations in Chilean Patagonia in the Context of Climate Change”
Emilfork is investigating the relationships between humans and the vast ice reserves (“cryosphere”) in the Chilean Patagonia region and the impact of climate change.
Dylan Forrester
Political Science
“Persuasive Messaging to Build Reconciliation after Conflict”
Forrester is assessing the effects of intergroup contact in Colombia’s postwar society, testing how to improve civilians’ attitudes towards reintegrating members of the guerilla group FARC.
Alvaro Grampone
History
“Masculinities According to Their Class. The Social Production of Privilege, Modernity, and Masculinity in Peruvian Elites, 1872-1919”
Gampone’s work explores attempts to construct a more masculine, more modern and “whiter” nation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Vivienne Muller
Native American Studies
“An overview of St. Vincent based Garifuna Research and Communities”
Muller examines the understudied Garifuna people — a population of mixed free African and indigenous American ancestry — of St. Vincient in the Caribbean and their migration.
Leanny Muñoz
Music
“Panamanian Musical Reactions to U.S. Presence in the Canal Zone”
Munoz’s research looks at how music in Panama presents a complex and varied opinion of the U.S. presence in the country.
Thomas Snyder
Anthropology
“Climate, Collapse, and Recovery: Preliminary Bioarchaeological Analyses from South Central Peru”
Snyder analyzed 600- to 1,000-year-old human remains from south central Peru to gain insights into the impact of intense drought and societal collapse.
Jannet Torres Espinoza
Spanish and Portuguese Literature
“From surveillance into desire: The role of periodicals in shaping the compulsory schooling narrative in 19th century Peru”
Torres Espinoza is studying several Peruvian publications on primary education from the second half of the 19th century and their impact on society beyond the classroom.
Ana Maria Trujillo
Anthropology
“Constructing the Warrior: Female Guerrilla Fighters Within the Colombian Conflict”
Trujillo is looking into the experiences and roles of women as members of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a revolutionary group in Colombia, and the roles they have played in society since the official end of the conflict in 2016.
Marina Vergara
Plant Sciences and International Agricultural Development
“No Estamos Enseñando, Estamos Compartiendo: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Participatory Extension in Panama”
Vergara’s research focuses on how farmers are becoming more active participants in project planning and implementation in agricultural extension programs that have often been top-down bureaucracies.
Patricia Vidal
History
“Food insecurity and national policies in Latin America during the second half of 20th Century”
Vidal's research looks into how national policies around food were carried out from the 1960s through the 1990s and includes a comparative study of food insecurity and an examination of childhood nutrition social rights.
Valeria Zunino
Education
“Classroom Assessment Literacy in Chile: How are National Teaching Standards Enacted?
Zunino has looked into Chile's extensive literacy assessment programs and training to better integrate teaching and assessment, along with teachers' preparedness.
About the Institute
The Hemispheric Institute on the Americas is an interdisciplinary group bringing together faculty and graduate students to focus on the transnational processes in the American Hemisphere. The institute promotes research to challenge the boundaries of disciplinary specialization and culture area studies and explores the connections throughout the social, cultural and economic landscape of the Western Hemisphere from an array of perspectives.