Research

My research centers on the visual afterlives of political violence in Perú, investigating how photographs become contested sites of memory, resistance, and refusal. Drawing on visual anthropology and decolonial archival studies, I examine how undeveloped and hidden images circulate through clandestine networks, challenge official narratives, and continue to generate new meanings in the aftermath of extreme violence.

Dissertation Project: 

Dis/appearing Images: Visual Memory and the Politics of Reconciliation in Post-Conflict Peru

What happens to photographs that were never meant to be seen? Through 20+ months Fulbright-funded ethnographic fieldwork in Ayacucho, Perú, the epicenter of the internal armed conflict, I set out to trace these dis/appeared images. I collaborate with local photographers, families, and community members who preserve visual materials under precarious conditions, discovering how images that exist, don't exist, and might exist function as technologies of resistance that create alternative forms of historical testimony.

These occult images reveal alternative narratives and conceptions of time largely absent from Perú's official memory projects. Rather than seeking iconic representations of violence, my work explores how dispersed visual materials offer multiple, contradictory truths about survival and resistance. The project examines tensions between institutional and vernacular modes of remembering, asking fundamental questions about who gets to see, who gets to be seen, and who controls the frame.

Research Interests:

Visual and material culture
Critical archive studies
Memory, trauma, and post-conflict politics
Decolonial and feminist anthropology
Collaborative methodologies
Latin American studies
Quechua language and culture