About

About Me

As a sociocultural and medical anthropologist I am most broadly interested in the ways in which people struggle to overcome structural violence. My recent work is focused on the connections between food systems, structural inequalities, health, and wellbeing. This work has looked at the ways in which macro-level changes and shifts in local food distribution systems impact communities, families, and individuals. Specifically, I study how food scarcity and reduced access to affordable food influence individual stress levels, and household and community dynamics.

All of my research, teaching, and mentoring is designed around my commitment to feminist methodologies and critical race theory. My regional interests include Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Latinx and Black communities in the United States. In addition to my work in Cuba I have an ongoing project in Los Angeles, CA.

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. I completed my BA with a triple major in Anthropology, Hispanic Studies, and Policy Studies at Rice University, an MPH in Global Health at Boston University, and a PhD in Anthropology at UCLA. I held a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Irvine from 2015-2016.

Research Projects

Santiago de Cuba: Household Food Consumption

From 2008 to 2017 I conducted an ethnographic research project in Santiago de Cuba, the island's second largest city. This research reveals how contemporary changes in Cuban consumption practices contribute to increasing levels of stress as individuals and families face difficulty in accessing their preferred foods. Since the early 1990s, the goods and services equitably distributed by the state since Cuba’s 1959 socialist revolution have slowly become the responsibility of individuals. I analyze how families respond to changes in the food system and struggle to maintain a decent quality of life as the Cuban socialist welfare state falters in the post-Soviet era. Based on 16 months of ethnographic work in Santiago de Cuba, a majority Black city, I demonstrate how households struggle to acquire food and assemble a “decent” meal, a morally laden local social category wherein families determine whether food quality and cultural-appropriateness meet their own standards. Drawing upon my in-depth observations and interviews, I introduce the framework of “the politics of adequacy,” which details how people resist and make sense of scarcity or changing availability of basic life necessities. My work demonstrates a need to understand people’s practices of acquisition, and illuminates the ways in which the politics of adequacy may exacerbate or introduce new vulnerabilities as resources become scarce.

Los Angeles: Food Justice Organizations

"Healthy" Corner Store

I am currently conducting a study of the Los Angeles Food Justice Movement. This work includes several Los Angeles non-profits, city, or county based food justice organizations that are part of a growing social movement to improve access to healthy food among the urban poor. I am particularly focused on organizations that intervene in South and East Los Angeles, predominantly in Black and Latinx areas. As a part of this study, I am analyzing the ways in which these organizations understand and deal with the complicated issues related to inequality, racism, and other forms of discrimination that the communities face. Overall I am tracking the momentum around the food justice movement and the ways in which organizations build local support around their projects. I document the strategies that leaders use to achieve their goals of increasing food equity.

Havana and Santiago de Cuba: Food Consumption and Chronic Disease

I am also launching a new project in Cuba investigating rising rates of obesity and related chronic illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, and
cardiovascular disease —the latter now the number one cause of death on the island. Through this new study I will expand my research on food consumption practices to include a focus on the ways that the Cuban food system and food acquisition practices are implicated in rising obesity rates and the management of chronic disease.

Teaching