I study the emergence of—and relationship between—propertied and territorial ways of relating to land, specifically in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. I am particularly interested in how non-federal actors - including - state governors, migrants, and Indigenous communities - contesr federal hegemony and assert sovereignty over the space of the border through property frameworks.
My undergraduate research at the University of Arizona examined housing inequality in Tucson’s manufactured housing communities and historically Mexican neighborhoods, especially through the mechanism of the tax lien. After graduation, I worked for a year as a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributing to research on the growth of political violence, police politicization, and far-right movements in the United States.
Department and Institution:
Geography, UC Berkeley
Bio/CV: