María José Méndez Gutiérrez

Assistant Professor

Campus

Fields of Study

Areas of Interest

  • Political violence in and against the Global South
  • The illicit global economy
  • Critical development studies
  • Feminist theory and methods
  • Anticolonial and decolonial thought

Biography

Her book project examines the gendered political economy of transnational gang violence in Central America. As part of an SSHRC-funded international team, María is working to document and commemorate the history of the Salvadoran Civil War. Recent publications: Acuerpar: The decolonial feminist call for embodied solidarity in Signs (2023) and Studying Gangs in Central and South America: Reflections on Gender and Researcher Positionality in The Oxford Handbook of Gangs and Society (2024).

Education

BA, Vassar College
PhD, University of Minnesota