Sociocultural anthropologist researching the cultural politics of youth organizing, transnational migration, urban space, and social movements in Mexico and the United States.
Explore My ResearchMy research provides a transnational perspective on historic marginalization, racialization, youth political culture, and the role of art in activism. I examine how young people in both Mexico and the United States use creative expression — hip-hop, punk, street art, and digital media — as tools for political resistance and community building in the face of systemic exclusion.
Through ethnographic fieldwork spanning multiple cities and border regions, I explore how urban spaces become contested sites where marginalized communities assert their presence, challenge dominant narratives, and create autonomous zones of cultural production and political action.
Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico
Published by University of California Press, this book examines how Mexican youth use music, art, and collective action to create spaces of autonomy in the face of state violence, economic marginalization, and social exclusion. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork, it maps the cultural geographies of resistance across urban Mexico and traces connections to transnational movements for social justice.
How young people develop political consciousness, organize collectively, and challenge systems of power through both traditional activism and cultural production.
The experiences of communities navigating borders, citizenship, belonging, and identity across the US-Mexico transnational space.
How marginalized communities claim, transform, and defend urban spaces as sites of cultural expression, political action, and autonomous community life.
The role of hip-hop, punk, street art, muralism, and digital media as tools for political resistance, community organizing, and cultural survival.