Biography
Chelsey is a PhD student in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese interested in social justice, particularly in Mexican and Chicanx contexts. During her MA, her research centered around street performance and its digital representation in reaction to the enforced disappearance in Iguala. This research inspired her to delve further into questions of memory and truth, which is what she currently focuses on. She looks forward to continuing to explore these ideas within the digital realm and traversing the field of Digital Humanities.
Project Description
Her project in DResSUP echoes these interests. Entitled “Thick-Truthing: Complicating the Archive and Networking State Violence”, this project addresses the ongoing phenomenon of state violence in Mexico as a tradition within an era of informal wars. To fully understand such a seemingly unintelligible event and the way in which it is remembered, she argues that it is vital to create networks between Mexico’s past and also within its present. Furthermore, she aims to complicate the concept of ‘truth’, considering it not as a uni-lateral fact, but as a prismed-construction. In sight of such goals, this summer she hopes to focus on the way truth in regards to Ayotzinapa is portrayed in major US and Mexican newspapers, gaining skills such as data mining and word-mapping. Chelsey is excited to learn as much as she can!