Join the Office of Research at Tulane University in welcoming Dr. Víctor M. Torres-Velez, who will be presenting in his research in a talk titled, Racializing Space: the Enviro-embodied Poetics of Bare Life in the Age of Neoliberalism on Thursday, October 18.

Dr. Torres-Velez received his bachelors from the University of Puerto Rico (1996) and his Masters (2003) and Ph.D. (2007) from Michigan State University. He is currently affiliated with the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at City University of New York. He is a critical medical anthropologist by training, who specializes in gender, justice and environmental change. Dr. Torres-Vélez’ interdisciplinary theoretical expertise and interests are diverse. Some of these include: political ecology, development theories, theories of social change, transnationalism, science and technology studies, visual anthropology and contemporary and classical theory. Dr. Torres-Vélez’ regional focus is Latin America and the Caribbean, with an emphasis in Puerto Rico. Dr. Torres-Vélez’ research explores people’s responses to drastic environmental and public health changes. Particularly, how people make sense of health problems in contexts environmental pollution and widespread chronic diseases. His emphasis on embodied meaning-making practices is used to decipher the triggers behind the emergence of environmental social movements. His more recent work focuses on the racialized spaces of capital as related to some of the cause(s) and consequential impacts of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico. While Dr. Torres-Vélez’ research in Vieques, Puerto Rico, contributes to Puerto Rican and Latin American studies in particular, his research insights provider a broader illustration of similar processes that affect people and places globally.