Food is at the core of my research. It is vibrant, nourishing, and has often been a site for meaning-making and wielding power, through it we are all connected. As a Chicana feminist, I focus on elevating the voices of oppressed peoples in spaces where they are often occluded. I pay as much attention to the subtle and grand acts that bring to light battles for agency and justice. I focus on testimonios as vehicles through which people speak their truth. I celebrate different ways of knowing.

Dissertation research

My dissertation titled, “Understanding Local Foodways and Agrobiodiversity Conservation in Oaxaca and Yucatán, Mexico through Campesino Voices,” explores the interactions between campesinos, or Mexican smallholder family farmers, and biological diversity via cultural practices related to native landraces and wild harvested foods in two communities. One community is located in the milpero region of Yucatán, and the other is located in the Sierra Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca.

I incorporate Political Ecology theories on power relations and drivers of environmental change and Chicana Feminism in my research. My methods consist of a mix of traditional qualitative research like semi-structured interviews complemented with testimonios and creative work to understand the perspectives and voices of the people that give me the honor of sitting with and learning from them. My research aims to elevate stories about food that are grounded in the experiences and perspectives of campesinos who are stewarding native landraces, wild foodstuffs, and their related material and symbolic practices.

Past research

During my M.A. research, I used ethnography to understand the lived experience of food sovereignty in an MST (Landless Workers Movement) community in Mato Grosso, Brazil by exploring food production and distribution as a site of social and environmental justice.