Affiliated Research Centers, Labs, and Initiatives
Bioprecarity: Latinx Migrants, Captivity, and Resistance
Supported by a grant from the Crossing Latinidades Humanities Initiative and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this research group, co-led by Professor Catherine Ramírez, brings together faculty and graduate students from the Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities. We approach bioprecarity, the vulnerabilization of people as embodied selves, as a defining condition of undocumented Latinx life in the United States in the 21st century. The group is currently working on a volume, tentatively titled Bioprecarity: Migration, Captivity, and Resistance.
Dolores Huerta Archiving Partnership
The LALS department, the Huerta Center, and the University Library are collaborating on a partnership with the Dolores Huerta Foundation to support the establishment of new public archives documenting the work of the foundation and the legacy of social justice activist Dolores Huerta. This project is co-led by Professors Sylvanna Falcón, Jessica Taft, and Catherine Ramírez and involves two postdoctoral scholars who will work to demonstrate how materials from the archives can be used for research and education that engages with Huerta’s formidable legacy.
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
The Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas (Huerta Center) is the first in the University of California system to advance a broad program of interdisciplinary research that brings together Chicanx/Latinx and Latin American studies, including over 90 faculty and hundreds of students from our department and across UCSC. The center was founded in 1992 by faculty in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department, and the center’s director has always been a department member, with additional faculty from our department serving on the Executive Committee and as affiliated faculty.
Extractivism and Society Research Cluster
The Extractivism and Society Research Cluster, led by Professor Fernando Leiva, was formed in 2019 to bring together scholars, students, and community activists and produce “knowledge for action” that unravels socio-environmental and socio-territorial conflicts in the Americas. Researchers closely examine how discursive and material dimensions interact in conflicts and how power influences the relation between extractivism and society. Research focuses on Latin America, shedding light on the multi-faceted strategies corporations and states deploy to legitimize extractivist activities in the face of social opposition. Members of the research cluster collaborate to share teaching strategies, methods, curricula, materials, and activities.
Global Latinidades Project
As part of the Global Latinidades Project, Associate Professor Cecilia M. Rivas facilitates multidisciplinary research on the expansion of the scope of Latinx studies beyond the Americas along several themes that include transnational and global imaginaries, the emergence of Central American identities beyond the isthmus, analysis of media portrayals, migration, and representations of time and space. She is also developing new graduate and undergraduate courses that address Global Latinidades as a conceptual site and the (re)formation and (re)imagination of Central American ontologies and epistemologies.
Human Rights Investigations Lab
Housed in the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, the Human Rights Investigations Lab, led by Professor Sylvanna Falcón, has a social justice mission to track and monitor ongoing humanitarian, environmental, and socio-political crises throughout the Americas. It uses open-source investigative methods to achieve accountability for communities adversely affected by human rights violations and promote justice. Many of the student researchers who undertake this work come from our department.
Institute for Social Transformation
The Institute for Social Transformation builds on the campus’s progressive values and areas of existing strength while simultaneously serving as an incubator for new ideas and an accelerator for pathbreaking scholarship in the public interest. Our faculty serve on the institute’s executive board and participate in many of its research programs, like Building Belonging, and the Catalyze Awards and Emerging Scholar Support programs.
Venom Lab
Associate Professor Lily Balloffet directs the Venom Lab, which seeks to link human and animal ecologies by studying snake species such as the Terciopelo, Bushmaster, and Central American Rattlesnake. Undergraduates who work with the lab use digital archives and conduct data entry to explore how venomous snakes provide new understanding of environments and societies. This research is supported by the Huerta Center’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program and the Institute for Social Transformation’s Building Belonging Program.