Aurora Vergara-Figueroa

Bio

Aurora is a PhD candidate in residence. Her research and teaching interests are Sociological Theory, Critical Race Theory, Gender and Decoloniality, Political Economy of Agrarian Change, Political Sociology, Comparative Historical Sociology, Diaspora Studies, Sociology of Law, and Philosophy of History.

Education

2012 (Anticipated) PhD in Sociology. University of Massachusetts Amherst
2011 Master of Arts. University of Massachusetts Amherst
2011 Graduate certificate in Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies. University of Massachusetts Amherst
2008 B.A. Sociology, Universidad del Valle-Cali-Colombia
2006 Graduate certificate in Ethno-education, Universidad del Valle-Cali-Colombia

Research

2011. Doctoral Dissertation Research Project. ‘Race’, Gender, and Land Rights in Colombia. A historical ethnography of the Afrocolombians’ struggles with land tenure, 1851-2011
2010. Master Thesis: Ripped from the Land, Shipped Away, and Reborn the Massacre of Bellavista and its Conceptual and Socio-Geo-Historical Dimensions. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/570
2009. Research assistant: Project Declarations of Mexican immigrants, 1895-1898
2008-2009. Research Assistant: Project Afrolatino-a diasporas-Reconfigurations of racism and new scenarios of power after 2001, Political Science Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
2008. Coordinator of the baseline study on the effects of multiple discrimination towards Afrocolombian women in Cali. European Union-FUPAD-National Network of Afrocolombian women "Kambiri"-Cali-Colombia
2007. Junior Consultant. Afrocolombian Evaluation: USAID Measurement (United States Agency for International Development)-Cali-Colombia
2007- 2008. Research Assistant. Project "Ethno-racial Inequalities, Collective Action, Ethnicity and Resistance in the Northern of the Valle del Cauca and the South of the department of Cauca", Universidad del Valle-Cali-Colombia

Teaching

Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008-2012
Teaching Associate

Introduction to Latin American Societies

Teaching Assistant

Sociological Theories and Perspectives
Social Problems
Introduction to Sociology