October 03, 2022
Meghan O'Toole
Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera presents at Williams College
Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latinx Studies and Anthropology Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera was invited to speak at Williams College last week.
The title of the September 29 lecture was “Environmental Racism and Grieving Geographies in Mexico.”
Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts and the oldest liberal arts college in the United States. Rodríguez Aguilera expressed gratitude for the opportunity to present at Williams College.
“My visit to Williams College, organized by the Latina/o/x Studies Deparment, to give a public talk about my work on environmental racism in Mexico, was very important to me because I had the opportunity to listen to students about their own concerns about their environment, as well as to connect to other faculty who engaged with my work,” Rodríguez Aguilera said.“I also had the chance to guest lecture a class where we discussed one of my articles, and students gave great feedback and asked great questions.”
Rodríguez Aguilera was born and raised in Puebla, Mexico. Her work focuses on environmental racism, ecological grief, mestizaje, state violence, and anti/de-colonial feminism in Latin America at the intersection between race, gender, environment, and affect.
She is currently working on her manuscript “Grieving Geographies, Mourning Waters: Race, Gender, and Environment on the Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico,” winner of the 2021 National Women's Studies Association and University of Illinois Press First Book Prize. An ethnographical and geographical feminist work, the book centers on an ecocide happening in the Chacahua-Pastoría Lagoons and the grief felt by the ecological and human loss.