- Associate Professor of Anthropology
- Chafee Hall, Rm 510
- Phone: 401.874.9305
- Email: hilda_llorens@uri.edu
Biography
Hilda Lloréns is a cultural anthropologist and a decolonial scholar. The thread that binds Dr. Lloréns’ scholarship is understanding how racial and gender inequality manifest itself in cultural production, nation building, access to environmental resources, and exposure to environmental degradation. Dr. Lloréns’ research has been centrally concerned with critiquing structural inequalities and dismantling taken for granted notions of power. At URI, she teaches core courses in anthropology, such as Anthropological Theory, Language & Culture, Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Latinas/Latinos/Latinxs, and Gender & Culture, among others.
Research
- Caribbean, Latino/Latina US
- Environmental Justice, Climate Justice, Environmental Racism
- Race and Racisms, Racial/Ethnic Identity
- Gender, Women’s Activism, History of the Body
- Symbolic Anthropology, Representations, Semiotics
- Art and Anthropology, Visual Studies, Popular Culture
- Ethnographic Methods, Online Methodologies
Education
- Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 2005
- M.A. in Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 1998
- B.A. in Sociology, Eastern Connecticut State University, 1996
Selected Publications
(Recent)
Books:
2021 Making Livable Worlds: Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice. Decolonizing Feminisms: Antiracist and Transnational Praxis book Series (University of Washington Press).
*Awarded the Gregory Bateson Book Prize, Society for Cultural Anthropology, 2022
*Awarded the Frank Bonilla Book Prize, Puerto Rican Studies Association, 2022
2020 “¡Ustedes tienen que limpiar las cenizas e irse de Puerto Rico para siempre!:”la lucha por la justicia ambiental, climática y energética como trasfondo del verano de Revolución Boricua 2019. (Editora Educación Emergente).
2014 Imaging The Great Puerto Rican Family: Framing Nation, Race, and Gender during the American Century. (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield).
2013 Arrancando Mitos de Raíz: Guía para una Enseñanza Antirracista de la Herencia Africana en Puerto Rico [Pulling-up Myths from the Root: Guide for the Anti-racist Teaching of Puerto Rico’s African Heritage] (Editora Educación Emergente).
Articles
2022, In Defense of Black Life: A Brief Cultural History of Anti- Racist Efforts in Puerto Rico Routledge Handbook of Afro-Latin American Studies
2022, Introdution: Global Black Ecologies, Environment and Society
2021, A Passion for the Sea: Human-Sea Interactions in Contemporary Caribbean Art Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal
2020 “Racialization works different here in Puerto Rico, do not bring your U.S.-centric ideas about race here!” Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society.
2019 “Water is Life, but the Colony is a Necropolis: Environmental Terrains of Struggle in Puerto Rico.” Hilda Lloréns and Maritza Stanchich. **Awarded the 2020 Latin American Studies Association, Puerto Rico Section Blanca G. Silvestrini Prize for Outstanding Article in Puerto Rican Studies.
2019 “Using the Anthropological Concept of ‘Core Cultural Values’ to Understand the Puerto Rican 2019 Summer Protests.” American Anthropology Association, Public Anthropologies. Carlos García-Quijano and Hilda Lloréns.
2019 “The Race of Disaster: Black Communities and the Crisis in Puerto Rico.” Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society. (Invited Blog)
2018 “Imaging Disaster: Puerto Rico Through the Eye of Hurricane Maria”
2018 “BeyondBlanqueamiento: Black Affirmation in Contemporary Puerto Rico”
2018 “Women Lead Puerto Rico’s Recovery”
2018 “Ruin Nation”
2018 “Coal’s Open Wounds”
See all publications: Academia