About Me 

I am a historian and sociologist who specializes on questions of violence, crime, religion, and gender in twentieth and twentieth-first century Latin America, with a particular focus on Mexico and Central America.

I am an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University. In the 2021-2022 academic year, I was a Marie Curie Junior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS) at University of Freiburg.

Prior to joining George Washington University, I was an Assistant Professor at Loyola University Chicago and at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). In 2017-2018, I was a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. I hold a PhD in Sociology and Historical Studies from the New School for Social Research.

My book In the Vortex of Violence: Lynching, Extralegal Justice, and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (University of California Press, 2020) examines the uncharted history of lynching during the formative decades of the post-revolutionary period (1930-1960). Based on an array of previously untapped historical sources, the book contributes to globalize the history of lynching beyond the United States, while offering key insights into the cultural, historical, and political reasons behind the continuing presence of lynching in Latin America today. 

I am the lead editor of the books Violence and Crime in Latin America: Representations and Politics (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017) and Human Security and Chronic Violence in Mexico: New Perspectives and Proposals from Below (Editorial Porrúa, 2019). 

My work has been published in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Research Review, The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History, The Journal of Social History; and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American History.

In 2021, I was appointed a Global Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Mexico Institute. Over the last decade, I have authored several specialized reports for the Wilson Center, the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center, the United Nations Development Program, and the International Peace Institute. I am also a collaborator and member of Noria Research’s Mexico & Central America Program.

Contact: gemasantamaria@gmail.com

Find me on:

Twitter @gemakloppe and LinkedIn