Selene Diaz

Selene Diaz is currently an instructor in the Sociology department and Women and Gender Studies at Virginia Tech. Selene is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department and has a Mexican Americans and Latina/o certificate from Texas A&M. She earned her M.A. and Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology from the University of El Paso, Texas.

Selene’s research interests center around Mexico/US border issues, immigration, Latinx, and Indigenous communities in Mexico. Her dissertation research addresses social and institutional interactions among indigenous and non-indigenous in Cd. Juarez. She examines how indigenous communities navigate the city's multiple borders (ethnicity, language, culture, and gender). She is working on three articles. “The Effects of Internal Migration on the Raramuri in Cd. Juarez.” To understand the impact that immigration has had on this community, Selene examines how migration has transformed gender/power relations in the domestic, economic, social, and cultural arenas. Using gender and migration theory paired with a transnational feminist conceptual framework, she analyzes the gendered role of the Rarámuri worldview, cultural practices, and holidays and how these elements are transformed in Ciudad Juárez to readapt them to their urban life necessities. The second article, “Visual Sociology: Images and Narratives about Social Identification by the Rarámuri in Ciudad Juárez.” This research aims to analyze how the Rarámuri in Ciudad Juárez (re)construct their social identity by examining photographs taken by Rarámuris. Using narratives based on city pictures allows the Rarámuri to reflect on their experiences and emotions about life in Ciudad Juárez. In the last article, “A Life History Approach to Deconstruct Transgender Rarámuri Identity in Ciudad Juárez,” the general objective is to understand the colonial/ modern gender systems using the life history of a transgender Rarámuri woman in Ciudad Juárez.