Research Statement
My research focuses on the role of social movements in pressuring governments and corporations to address issues of inequality. It offers insight into the pathways by which social movements manage to survive over time and become politically impactful. I also examine the causes and consequences of government neglect of socially vulnerable communities during disaster recoveries. I have developed studies on feminist and student mobilization in Puerto Rico, global climate justice activism, diversity and inclusion in social movements, science activism, anti-sweatshop activism, intersectional solidarity, and anti-racist organizing.
Publications
Peer reviewed Articles
Science is under attack and scientists are becoming more involved in efforts to defend it. The rise in science advocacy raises important questions regarding how science mobilization can both defend science and promote its use for the public good while also including the communities that benefit from science.
The article expands the traditional focus of pork-barrel spending on legislative appropriations to include disaster aid. With this view, electorally motivated disaster resource distribution is a form of clientelism that enables corruption on a larger scale.
This article offers a theoretical and empirical exploration of a form of solidarity in which one group spontaneously mobilizes in support of another, unrelated group. It is a fleeting solidarity based not on shared identity but on temporarily aligned goals, one aimed less at persistence and more at short-term impact.
A proposed approach is applied to the power distribution network in Aguada municipality, Puerto Rico. The results show that the proposed rollout approach significantly improves the network service level after the effects of a natural disaster.
This article describes an effort to diversify the pool of undergraduates interested in pursuing graduate studies in political science by making quantitative social science more accessible to underrepresented minority (URM) students.
To what extent do Indigenous Peoples exert influence over global climate decision-making processes? This article reviews the state of knowledge on the political impact of Indigenous Peoples in spaces of global climate governance and the mechanisms by which Indigenous Peoples exert political influence. This review identifies three prominent debates on the question of the influence of Indigenous Peoples in global climate governance: (1) What constitutes Indigenous Peoples political influence over global climate governance, (2) the extent to which Indigenous Peoples exert it, and (3) whether the political influence of Indigenous Peoples over global climate governance is enough to stop climate regimes from harming them.
Do social vulnerabilities and ruling party support shape government responsiveness in times of disasters? We find that communities with ties to the ruling party elicit greater government responsiveness while socially vulnerable communities are less likely to be prioritized during the disaster relief efforts, controlling for disaster damage as well as logistical, economic, and essential service recovery priorities.
This article analyzes the experience of higher education student organizing in Puerto Rico. The national student strikes of 2010 and 2017 were the longest held in the history of the University of Puerto Rico, the island's only public institution for higher education. We examine the educational approach of the national student social movement using the concepts of critical thinking and embodied learning.
Role of structural racism in policy implementation. Social Science Quarterly.
Guidelines for enacting intersectional solidarity, drawing on a theoretically grounded examination of three contemporary social movements in the United States and abroad (Occupy, Gezi Park, and the Women’s March).
An Organizing Approach to Diversifying Political Science, Profession Symposium: Racial and Ethnic Diversity Within Political Science.
Identifying challenges students from underrepresented groups face as they transition into graduate studies. Political Science and Politics.
Green New Deal policies should be fueled by frontline and grassroots power. Public Administration Review.
The contextualization Puerto Rican Left in relation to the island’s political economy, identification of the forces in the Puerto Rican Left, and review of their differences and recent history. Alternautas
Building on Luther Gerlach's forgotten framework of polycentric social movements to investigate politicizing polycentricity. Environmental Policy and Governance.
Implications of intersectionality for social movements. Politics, Groups, and Identities.
Peer reviewed Chapters in books
This essay on feminist organisational principles, traces the development of key feminist concepts and illustrates how they are instantiated in feminist practices of governance, drawing on scholarly treatments, social movement organising and other institutional settings.
This essay focuses on the practical implications of intersectionality for social movements. It reviews prominent definitions of intersectionality, identifies a series of tenets, and presents a brief history of the notion of intersectionality.
“Enacting Intersectional Solidarity in the Puerto Rican Student Movement.” In Gendered Mobilizations, eds. Jill Irvine, Sabine Lang, Celeste Montoya. London: Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. 2019, pp. 171-187.
In this chapter, Nadia E. Brown, Guillermo Caballero, Fernando Tormos, Allison Wong, and Sharonda Woodford argue that despite criticism of Second-Wave feminists for ignoring the intersection of race and gender, the movement, when viewed in conjunction with the African American Civil Rights Movement proved influential for Black women who came of age during this period, launching a generation of female, African American state political leaders.