Mónica Salas Landa

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Mónica Salas Landa is a sociocultural anthropologist with regional expertise in Latin America. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Lafayette College in the USA. Her work is located in the multidisciplinary field of Latin American Studies and in the subfields of political anthropology, historical anthropology, and visual anthropology. Her forthcoming book, Visible Ruins: The Politics of Perception and the Legacies of Mexico’s Revolution, examines the implementation and abandonment of Mexico’s postrevolutionary policies and reforms, including Mexico’s economic nationalism fueled by oil, as well as how people interact with the material remains of these revolutionary projects, such as decaying oil infrastructures. Salas Landa is currently working on two oil-related projects. The first project centers around the analysis of Mexico’s oil nationalist propaganda and the establishment of technological nationalism during the mid-twentieth century. The second project responds to the call by feminist geographers to appropriate topographic knowledge as a means to uncover evidence of the delayed destruction associated with oil extraction and late industrialism. 

Publications

  • Salas Landa, Mónica . Visible Ruins: The Politics of Perception and the Legacies of Mexico’s Revolutions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2024).
  • Salas Landa, Mónica. “Encountering Lauren Berlant: Cruel and Other Optimisms”,  The Geographical Journal 89 (2023): 143-160.
  • Salas Landa, Mónica. “Commentary: Toxic Bodies, Part I.” Engagement (blog of The Anthropology and Environment Society. February 22, 2018. https://ae.americananthro.org/engagement-blog-commentary-toxic-bodies-part-i/
  • Salas Landa, Mónica. “Crude Residues: The Workings of Failing Oil Infrastructures.” Environment and Planning A 48, no. 4 (2016): 718–35.