Lisa Mueller
Wednesday March 12, 2025
GSS Adjunct Professor Dr. Lisa Mueller published an article in Social Science Japan titled, "Toward an intersectional Burakuness: regional discontinuities in Japan's Buraku-focused museums." View her article by clicking this link.
Nelson Varas-Díaz, Sheilla Rodríguez-Madera, Mark Padilla, Genevieve Reid, and Kevin Grove
Monday February 24, 2025
A recent paper on physician migration and spatial stigma was published in Global Public Health. This work includes contributions from five GSS faculty members. View the article here: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2025.2467767
Matthew Marr
Friday February 21, 2025
A report from research by GSS professor Matthew Marr and Ph.D. student Melissa Hurtado (Rice University) has been released based on unsheltered homelessness and street outreach in Miami-Dade County. The study has been funded by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) and conducted in consultation with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust and the Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity (MCARE). The policy report is part of a series from FIU’s Green School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). It presents preliminary findings from one component of a multi-method study that uses interviews, observation, analysis of administrative data, and community photography.
View the policy report in this link
Kevin Grove
Monday February 17, 2025
Professor Kevin Grove will deliver the plenary lecture in Political Geography on "Political Geographies of, and in, an Informational Political Economy" at the 2025 annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers.Juliet Erazo
Monday February 17, 2025
Associate Professor Juliet Erazo recently completed a 3-year grant, funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, for ethnographic research in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She is currently working on a book and two journal articles which analyze the results of this research.Chris Girard
Monday February 17, 2025
Springer Nature author services has promoted GSS Professor Emeritus Chris Girard's recent publication in their 90-second video clip: https://vimeo.com/1049762708?share=copy
Girard, Chris (2025) Cultural information dynamics and the rise of women in Norway’s state and military. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 12: 29.
To view the full article: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-04247-z
Andrea Queeley
Friday February 14, 2025
GSS and African and African Diaspora Studies professor Andrea Queeley's recent projects include:
“The Black Mothers Care Plan: Reducing Racial Bias and Supporting Maternal and Infant Health”, Co-PI October 2021-2024, supported by a $1.2M grant from The Children’s Trust Early Childhood Demonstration Projects. For more information see https://cwgs.fiu.edu/projects/black-mothers-care-plan/
“New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward Wetlands: A Cultural History” preliminary research for the Cultural Heritage STEM Learning Trail at the Sankofa Wetland Park, in partnership with the National Parks Service and supported by a grant from the New Orleans Recreation and Culture Fund. https://sankofanola.org/wetland-park-and-nature-trail/
“Disrupting Anti-Blackness: Artists Voicing Truths”, Exhibit Co-Curator with Dr. Valerie Patterson, Frost Museum, January-June 2022. For more information see: https://frost.fiu.edu/exhibitions-events/events/2022/01/disrupting-anti-blackness.html
Jean Muteba Rahier
Friday February 14, 2025
Major grants
PI of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project ($379,500) conducted from August 2021 to December 2024: “A Multifaceted Examination of the Application of Ethnoracial Law for Afrodescendants in Contemporary Multiculturalist Ecuador”
NSF Award ID 2124564
Key research focus areas
Founding Director of the Observatory of Justice for Afrodescendants in Latin America (OJALA) since 2018, see https://ojala.fiu.edu. OJALA involves a group of international researchers based in Latin America, North America, and Europe. OJALA is housed in the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (KG-LACC). OJALA has the objective to produce comparative knowledge about Afrodescendants’ human rights in the practice of Latin America’s judicial systems. OJALA has been supported by the Ford Foundation-LASA Small Grants program; the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research; the National Science Foundation (NSF); and Florida International University. See: https://www.scientia.global/dr-jean-muteba-rahier-championing-human-rights-for-afrodescendants-in-latin-america/
Since August 2021, Editor-in-Chief of the multi-disciplinary scholarly journal Latin American & Caribbean Ethnic Studies (LACES); see https://lacc.fiu.edu/laces/.
Major publications
Producer of the video: “Do Afro-Ecuadorian Lives Matter? Chronology of a Litigation”. 2025.
Guillermo Grenier
Thursday February 13, 2025
GSS professor Guillermo Grenier served as one of the Principal Investigators on the $4.5 million Mellon grant “Commons for Justice” project in Fall 2024. Dr. Grenier also conducted the 2024 FIU Cuba Poll which generated $4,838,730 in publicity for FIU and reached an audience of 498,236,505 million people.
Ashley Hahn A
Tuesday February 11, 2025
Congratulations to GSS professor Ashley Hahn A on her workshop article "Liars are More Influential: Effect of Deception in Influence Maximization on Social Networks":
Mehmet Aktas, Esra Akbas, and Ashley Hahn (2024) Liars are More Influential: Effect of Deception in Influence Maximization on Social Networks, the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data Workshop Next-Gen-BiGLA 2024.
Ashley Hahn A
Tuesday February 11, 2025
Congratulations to GSS professor Ashley Hahn A on her new publication "Being and becoming through Facebook: morality, sociality, and reflection among young Turkish-American Muslim women" in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute:
Ashley Hahn (2025) Being and Becoming Through Facebook: Morality, sociality, and piety among young Turkish-American Muslim women, Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, 31 (2): 1-18.
https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.14230
Monday February 10, 2025
Since 2022, the NSF-funded Puerto Rico PhotoVoice Project has united researchers from FIU, the University of Utah, UPR, and communities in Puerto Rico targeted for relocation to explore disaster recovery challenges through photography and critical reflection.
The project began with 13 participants from Comerío, recruited via community-based organization Casa Juana Colón. In workshops co-led by FIU, UPR, and community members, participants used the PhotoVoice methodology to create a photo exhibit titled “Realities and Dreams in Comerío: A Just Recovery,” which proposed alternatives for disaster recovery and health promotion. The exhibit’s success, attended by local stakeholders, led to additional cycles in Comerío (“Project Resurgence: Cohesion with Security”) and Loíza (“Relocating Lives”), addressing disaster response, recovery, and community health challenges.
Findings (presented in this article) emphasize the leadership of women in disaster recovery and holistic health promotion. The project’s expansion to other communities and the participants’ recent exhibit at the Green School demonstrate its impact on fostering participatory leadership in Comerío and Loíza. Visit the full virtual gallery exhibits here. A video summary of a recent visit to FIU by the Puerto Rican community collaborators for both communities is also available here.
Richard Tardanico
Monday February 10, 2025
GSS professor Rick Tardanico recently published two articles based on his long-term participatory research on dispossession and speculative mega-development in Miami’s Little Haiti community:
Tardanico, R. 2024. ‘Fractured Mobilization: Miami’s Little Haiti confronts mega-real estate speculation.’ Critical Housing Analysis 11 (1): 127-136.
Tardanico, R. 2025. 'Mega-real estate speculation and racialized dispossession: Miami's Little Haiti.' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 49 (1): 21-38.
Kevin Grove
Monday February 10, 2025
GSS professor Kevin Grove has published a co-edited book, Political Geography in Practice (Filippo Menga, Caroline Nagel, Kevin Grove, and Kimberley Peters, eds.). Organized by editors of Political Geography, the discipline’s flagship journal, and featuring contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book focuses on the theories, approaches, and methodologies that inform political geography, and equips readers with state-of-the art understanding of how political geographers practice their craft.
Zachary Levenson
Monday February 10, 2025
GSS professor Zachary Levenson’s new article, “Communists and Black Liberation Movements: Divergent Trajectories in the United States and South Africa, 1939–1969,” has been published in Social Forces.
Sheilla Rodríguez-Madera and Nelson Varas-Díaz
Monday January 27, 2025
Dr. Sheilla Rodriguez-Madera and Dr. Nelson Varas-Diaz's book "The Bad Bunny Enigma: Culture, Resistance, and Uncertainty" has been cited in Brazil. The newspaper O Globo has highlighted how Bad Bunny’s new album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, serves as a powerful political statement about Puerto Rico. Dr. Sheilla R. Madera, co-editor of the collection and professor at FIU was interviewed about the artist’s impact on key issues such as gentrification, cultural resistance, and Boricua identity. Bad Bunny not only dominates global music charts but has also turned his art into a tool of artivism, amplifying messages of resistance and social awareness worldwide.
Nelson Varas-Díaz, Sheilla Rodríguez-Madera, Mark Padilla, Genevieve Reid, and Kevin Grove
Thursday January 23, 2025
The latest publication in the journal Health & Place includes five GSS faculty members. Nelson Varas-Díaz, Sheilla Rodríguez-Madera, Mark Padilla, Genevieve Reid, and Kevin Grove explore the critical issue of energy insecurity in Puerto Rico and its profound impact on mental health. This study, conducted in Adjuntas in collaboration with Casa Pueblo, highlights how unreliable energy access disrupts daily life, contributes to stress and anxiety, and affects the emotional well-being of affected communities.
Sheilla Rodríguez-Madera and Nelson Varas-Díaz
Monday January 13, 2025
Dr. Sheilla Rodríguez-Madera and Dr. Nelson Varas-Díaz's new book, The Bad Bunny Enigma: Culture, Resistance, and Uncertainty, has been published by Lexington Books. This volume, co-edited by Dr. Rodríguez-Madera and Dr. Varas-Díaz, brings together scholars from various disciplines to explore the cultural, political, and artistic dimensions of Bad Bunny’s work and its broader sociocultural impact.
The book critically examines:
- Nostalgia and collective memory in Bad Bunny’s music.
- His role in political movements, including the “Verano del 19” protests in Puerto Rico.
- Representations of gender and queerness in reggaeton.
- The tension between global commercialization and local authenticity in his art.
The introduction, co-authored by Nelson, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Sheilla, frames Bad Bunny as a cultural enigma—a figure who navigates identity, resistance, and innovation while grappling with the sociopolitical realities of Puerto Rico and its colonial legacy.
Here is the link to the book on Amazon, where you can find the cover and additional details: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Bunny-Enigma-Socio-Cultural-Explorations/dp/1666935964
Zachary Levenson
Monday March 4, 2024
GSS professor Zachary Levenson's new book, Delivery as Dispossession: Land Occupation and Resistance in a Post-Apartheid City is featured in a review forum at Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. Read commentaries from Malini Ranganathan, Ananya Roy, Nandita Sharma, and Yousuf Al-Bulushi, and Zach's response, at https://www.societyandspace.org/book-review-forums/delivery-as-dispossession-by-zachary-levenson
Mark Padilla
For nearly twenty years, Mark Padilla, Ph.D., has been conducting ethnographic and survey research on the social and political-economic structure of tourism areas in the Caribbean, focusing on the implications of tourism labor for the health and well being of local populations employed in this industry.
Matthew Marr
Matthew D. Marr, Ph.D., urban sociologist and ethnographer researches how homelessness is shaped by different social contexts in American and Japanese global cities in: Recovery Zone? Human Security at the Margins of American and Japanese Global Cities.
Marifeli Perez-Stable
Marifeli Perez-Stable, Ed.'s book Looking Forward: Comparative Perspectives on Cuba's Transformation was a finalist in the Political Science category, Choice Magazine's Book of the Year Award for 2007!