Maxwell School News and Commentary

In this conversation with Associate Professor of Sociology Selina Gallo-Cruz and her co-author, Silvia shared her reflections on the human experiences that have shaped her scholarship, the continuities of capitalist discipline observed in her early advocacy, and how she makes sense of today’s compounding global crises. Published in Capitalism Nature Socialism.

One element is “the return...of class politics, which takes the form of a series of important legislative measure that includes raising the minimum wage, facilitating the formation of unions, but also more specific things like, for example, recognizing the labor rights of domestic workers for the first time in the country,” says Edwin Ackerman, associate professor of sociology. 

“I've also heard stories from candidates who refused to cooperate with criminal group members and they were met with a lot of resistance,” says Jessie Trudeau, assistant professor of political science.

“When she [Claudia Sheinbaum] comes in, she is inheriting this mess, but she doesn’t necessarily have the charisma that (López Obrador) does,” says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations. “So it’s going to be a tall ask.”

“Carrying the Cross: Popular Christian Communities and Religious Protest during Pinochet's Dictatorship, 1973–90,” authored by Assistant Professor of History Denisa Jashari, was published in the Journal of Latin American Studies.

“The Chilean Christians for Socialism Movement: Liberationist, Third Worldist, and Utopian,” written by Assistant Professor of History Denisa Jashari, was published in Latin American Research Review.

The honor comes with funding for training for qualitative analysis of archival information in her research of people who were enslaved in British Crown Colonies. 

“We are entering contentious electoral cycles on both sides of the border, with voters going to the ballot box in June 2024 in Mexico and November 2024 for the U.S. The scourge of drug trafficking and ineffective government responses to organized crime will figure prominently in stump speeches,” writes Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

Some colors can affect divers’ physical and mental health, says Kyrstin Mallon Andrews, assistant professor of anthropology. For instance, because yellow water clouds the water’s surface, the fishermen must dive continually to see fish, an exhausting process. Yellow water also causes skin rashes and debilitating ear infections, along with “sort of generalized angst,” she says.

Talk of a BRICS common currency is “really a reflection of a desire among some segments of the world to have some counterweight to the U.S., the U.S. economy, the dollar,” says Daniel McDowell, associate professor of political science. But “I think most of this is just in fantasy land, because I don’t see any world in which it is really going to emerge in the way some people might hope.”