Wissenschaftlicher Werdegang

• Since 2013: Scholarship holder of the International Research Training Group " Between Spaces " - Freie Universität Berlin
• Since 2006: Member of the research group for studies of the Transnational City, directed by Dr. Federico Besserer, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Iztapalapa
• 2012 :  Qualification scholarship holder in the International Research Training Group " Between Spaces " - Freie Universität Berlin
• 2010-2012: 1 Master 2 - Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7 -- URMIS: "Migrations et relations interethniques", Mémoire : “La Diaspora chinoise de Paris, un réseau social débordé”
• 2009-2010: Master 1 - Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille-Lille 1: "Ethnologie et anthropologie des sociétés contemporaines"
• 2008-2009: Research assistant of Dr. Federico Besserer, chief of the Department of Anthropology of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Iztapalapa
• 2004-2008: Bachelor in Social Anthropology - Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Iztapalapa, Bachelor thesis : "El Barrio Chino de Mexicali, fachada de un barrio transnacional"

Forschungsschwerpunkte

Thematische Schwerpunkte

• Transnational migrations
• Diaspora studies
• Chinese studies
• Urban Anthropology
• Gender

Regionale Schwerpunkte

• México
• China
• Transpacific (Espacio transpacífico)

Promptionsvorhaben

Arbeitstitel des Dissertationsvorhabens

"Mujeres chinas dentro y fuera de los circuitos económicos de la diáspora en la Ciudad de México, Impacto de los migrantes en las dinámicas locales"

Betreuung: Prof. Dr. Ingrid Kummels

Abstract

In this project I focus my attention on the points of contact between the different networks of the Chinese Diaspora, in order to understand their connections and the way they create new spaces of interaction defined as "transnational spaces". The idea is to find the ways in which these migration processes and their particular anchors in local dynamics are transforming both local spaces and their global and transnational junctions.

The analysis takes into account the different forms of organization that determine the activities of Chinese economic circuits in the specific case of Mexico City, but taking in consideration the importance of the Diaspora’s networking around the world. I built my analytical framework around the idea of “the construction of a transnational city”, which can be defined as a series of urban spaces that are articulated through migration and through the forms of communication and economic linkages that are created between different spaces.

The center of my research focuses on actors who seek to go beyond the system of “Diaspora”, and by doing so expand their networks by building, in between the interstices of the pre-established networks, connections with the locals. In this sense, and taking gender studies into account, my hypothesis is that today Chinese feminine migrations are greatly contributing to these changes. Migrant women are the ones who take new directions out of the traditional circuits of the Diaspora, and by seeking innovative and empowering forms of social reproduction beyond the accustomed circuits and into the local dynamics, they have created new ways of bonding between host societies and the diasporic networks. In the last 20 years, there has been a great amount of women that have stopped adopting the customary activities (of the “traditional circuits”) that Chinese migrants kept reproducing for more than a century. I will hence try to understand these changes, depicting transformations in power and gender structures, in economic opportunities and in the dynamics of the Diaspora, and the impacts that these changes have had on local spaces and on local economic dinamics.

Presented papers

• Crossroads Asia Congress – “Figurations of Mibility”, with the paper Cinese women in the dynamics of the Diaspora: economical transnational enclaves, community resources and social insertion, in Humboldt Univeristät, Berlin. November 22nd 2012
• LASA International Congress, with the paper Los cambios en las dinámicas de las migraciones chinas: enclaves económicos transnacionales, recursos comunitarios e inserción social. San Francisco, USA. May 23-26
• International workshop “Asia y América”, with the paper Los chinos de Mexicali, una conformación urbana transnacional. Berlín, Germany: Entre Espacios, Colegio Internacional de Graduados, Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos  February 1, 2011
• 108^th Anual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.  Paper co-written with Federico Besserer, presented by him: Transnational Ethnography and Transnational Ethics. Research experiences of a project on Mexican indigenous transnational communities and the Chinese Diaspora in Mexico.  A the panel: Ethnographic Research and Partnership in Developing Human Subject Protection in Transnational Settings Philadelphia, PA. December 2-6, 2009
• International Congress “La Frontera, una nueva concepción cultural”, with Fetichismo mercantil y Creación de una Frontera: el Barrio Chino Transnacional. La Paz, Baja California: UABCS  February 27-29th, 2008
• Colloquium: 1er Coloquio de Licenciatura, Departamento de Antropología, UAM-I, with a collective photo exhibition and the paper“Fronteras de Mercancia: el Barrio Chino de Mexicali” December 2007