About Me
Nancy Rios-Contreras is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman University. She earned her PhD in Criminology from the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. She is a Bill Anderson Fund Fellowship alumna and a former Disaster Research Center affiliated graduate student.
Nancy is a proud daughter of immigrants from Jalisco and Zacatecas. She enjoys cross-country road trips, international travel, playing Lotería, speaking Spanglish, and spending time with her dog Frida.
Dissertation
Nancy's dissertation investigates primarily Central American, Haitian, and Mexican migrants’ transit experience through Mexico to the United States’ southern border. The concurrent impact of forced migration, militarization, securitization, and United States border externalization create disastrous conditions for migrants in transit. She draws her ethnographic analysis from 100 individual semi-structured interviews with migrants, five interviews with service providers, fieldwork observations, and photography in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico beginning in January 2019. Nancy’s research is informed by her extensive experience researching racialized spaces and social movement mobilization. She is committed to combining her interests in anti-racism and social justice to breakdown walls and build collaborations between the academy and borderlands communities.
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