Martha Balaguera

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science UTM (Mississauga)

Areas of interest

Borders
Migrations
Transnational feminisms
Critical carceral studies
Social movements
Violence

Biography

Martha Balaguera’s scholarship focuses on collective political struggles in violent contexts, with an emphasis on transborder activism in the Americas from a feminist perspective.

Her first book project (in progress) offers an ethnographic account of migrant encounters with humanitarianism and civil society across what she calls the “integral frontier,” spanning Central America, Mexico and the United States. In it, she theorizes how ordinary people, especially women, LGBTQ+ people, subaltern subjects, and grassroots communities respond with everyday practices of sanctuary and political organizing to forced displacement, confinement and intensified border enforcement.

Currently, Martha also has research projects on legal accompaniment at the US-Mexico border, Latin American feminist protest, and trauma-informed methodologies for conducting research with LGBTQ+ migrants.

Select publications

Martha Balaguera. 2022. "Trans-asylum: sanctioning vulnerability and gender identity across the frontier." Ethnic and Racial Studies. 46(9): 1791–1811.
Martha Balaguera, Luisa Farah Schwartzman and Luis Van Isschot. 2023. “Racial Frontiers: Hemispheric Logics of Haitians’ Displacement and Asylum in the Americas.” Antipode. 56(2): 379–99.
Sonia E. Alvarez, Martha Balaguera, Angelica Bernal, Layla Carvalho, Margaret Cerullo, Taylor Marie Doherty, Débora de Fina González, Kevin Henderson, Elva Orozco Mendoza and Millie Thayer. Forthcoming. “13 Theses on Feminist Protest: A Manifesto.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Special Issue "Big Feminisms: Fiftieth Anniversary."