Angie Mejia, Ph.D.

Education

BA, Portland State University, Anthropology and Social Science, 2005 

MA, Portland State University, Sociology, 2008 

Graduate Certificate of Advanced Study, Syracuse University, Women and Gender Studies, 2013 

PhD, Syracuse University, Sociology, 2019 

Teaching at UMR
I envision teaching as an act of nepantlerismo–a Nahuatl term used by Gloria Anzaldúa to describe someone who straddles two worlds and builds bridges between them. As an educator I want to encourage students to serve as puentes (bridges) using social theory to create a more just world. The classroom is not only a place for students to examine their daily lives but a stage to foster and nurture a healthy critique of academic discipline and practices.

Research
I situate my research in conversation with sociological works that focus on the intersectionality of emotions, examine social processes of racialization in/of space and place, and foreground a feminist and critical sociology approach to the study of health. This conversation is enriched by theoretical and methodological insights from affect and cultural studies, U.S. Women of Color (WOC) and transnational feminisms. Further, my approach to research design, methods, and data analysis are influenced by my position as a Latinx woman that theorizes and honors conocimientos (knowledge) that emerges from WOC experiential knowledge, and whose research is rooted in Chicanx/Latinx feminist epistemology and praxis.