ROBERTA VILLALÓN, PH.D.
Professor of Sociology
Latin American Feminist Activist Scholar

Originally from Mar del Plata, Roberta Villalón was born during the last military regime in Argentina. With a genuine interest in the politics of social inequalities, Roberta has been committed to actively work for justice within and across geographical and social borders. Her background in political science and international relations, together with her expertise in Latin American and Feminist Studies, has shaped her transnational sociological perspective distinctively. 

 

Her first authored book, Violence Against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality and Community (2010, NYU Press), and the three-part special issue on The Resurgence of Collective Memory, Truth and Justice Mobilizations in Latin American Perspectives, with its related book, Memory, Truth and Justice in Contemporary Latin America (2017, Rowman & Littlefield), illustrate her global feminist politics. Journal articles like “Violence against Immigrants in a Context of Crisis: A Critical Migration Feminist of Color Analysis," in the Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, and "Neoliberalism, Corruption and Legacies of Contention: Argentina's Social Movements, 1993-2006,” in Latin American Perspectives (2007, 34:2) also reflect how she has blended critical theory with transnational praxis. Similarly, book chapters such as "Latina Battered Immigrants, Citizenship, and Inequalities: Reflections on Activist Research" in Taking Risks: Feminist Activist Research in the Americas edited by Julie Shayne (2013, SUNY), and “Framing Extreme Violence: Collective Memory-Making of Argentina’s Dirty War” in Inequality and the Politics of Representation: A Global Landscape edited by Celine Pascale (2012, Pine Forge/Sage) are examples of not only the breadth and depth of her work, but also her commitment to put sociology in action. This dedication is evident as well in the edition of Academic Activism in the Americas of the XXI Century in Revista CS (2019), and Migration, Health and Inequalities: Critical Activist Research across Ecuadorean Borders (Bristol University Press, 2022), which is also available in Spanish in the Latin American and Caribbean Social Sciences' Library of CLACSO.

 

A Fulbright Scholar, and Professor of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at St. John's University, New York City, Roberta is also affiliated with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Women's, Gender and Sexualities, and the Global Development and Social Justice Programs at the university.  Over the years, she has been an active member and served in various leadership capacities in professional associations like Latin American Studies Association (LASA), International Sociological Association (ISA), and Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS). She is also a co-founding and active member of the Latin+ Feminist Sociology Collective and the Radical Feminist Collective. ​​

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Currently, Roberta is involved in two projects.  On the one hand, she is working with Victor Acebedo, Director of UBRIACO -a research theatre company- on an action community program called El Camino (The Road), inspired by their previous studies on health and migrations. El Camino includes forum and radio theatre plays and workshops to raise awareness on migrants' well-being and mobilize migrant communities.  On the other hand, she is co-authoring "On Bad Hombres: The Pendulum of Demonization in the United States’ Political Theatre" with Dr. Omar Montaña. This project interrogates from a decolonial feminist critical perspective how democracy operates to capture Latino/a/es as both a “criminal” problem and a key voting population central to the reproduction and crystallization of state policies of national security, migration, and population control.  Based on this initial case study, they are developing a comparative project to study similar situations in Argentina and Italy.