Andreina Torres Angarita

My research focuses on gender studies, urban anthropology, Latin American and Latinx studies. My doctoral research focused on the politics of welfare provision (via housing) and grassroots activism during the Bolivarian period (1998-present) in Venezuela. Through three years (2014-2017) of ethnographic fieldwork in Caracas I looked at how working-class women’s leadership in housing movements shaped claims for land redistribution and struggles for social reproduction in a changing urban environment. Following on my dissertation research I am eager to explore the historical pendular migration between Afro-Colombian rural towns and low-income neighborhoods in Caracas, and the growing Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S., with a specific interest in tracing family trajectories and transnational home and place-making strategies. I have taught courses in urban anthropology, feminist anthropology, ethnographic methods, Latin American and Latinx studies, with a focus on social movements, political economy, and feminist geographies.