Tania Cruz Salazar is a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University from May 8th, 2023 to Aug 31st, 2023.
I am a sociologist and anthropologist, a scholar of socio-cultural change in migrant and indigenous populations. My academic work has focused on studying identity changes among young indigenous migrants from a cultural racism approach. I have also analyzed how international migration and generational change cause major cultural impacts on rural and indigenous communities in Mexico.
I have specifically focused on the migrant youth agency, highlighting what those precarious and vulnerable populations do to change their status and improve their living conditions. One aspect that derives from this axis is that of cultural productions of young generations, particularly music productions, dance, and argot.
I use the ‘mixed identity box’ category to explain the increased repertoire that indigenous youth create by being outside their town and country. From the youth studies perspective, I have worked on the Ethno-youth category to talk about the youth indigenous identities, which are based on creativity, action, and decolonized thinking and behavior. I argue that what is learned and signified to produce other forms of expression mean symbolic work, as Willis explained.
I have also worked from a feminist approach to the women’s agency in corporeity, in this research area, I analyze how the embodiment of the representations and discourses order socio-culturally 'feminine' behavior and how women break with these mandates or not. Thus, among young indigenous women, migration is one of the most transgressive acts.
I use qualitative methods and ethnography. I have worked with indigenous populations of Chiapas in the United States (Florida, California and Maryland), with Central American transmigrant women in Mexico, with indigenous students migrating from rural areas to cities, and with diverse youth groups such as graffiti writers, hip hop youths, skates, and more. Each year, I participate in international conferences (Law and Society, LASA, Calacs) to discuss my findings and learn from other academics.
The current project that I am working on now is about the irregular migration of Mexicans to Canada. My goal is to cross the paradigms of international migration and labor law using the cultural anthropology perspective. In this project, I study not just the weight that deportation regimes have in the reproduction of cultural racism when determining which population is desirable as a resident, as a worker, and which is a waste but the migrant subjectivity and agency when it comes to everyday life. I refer specifically to the association of 'culturally' dangerous or unwanted populations by the fact of migrating disorderly and 'usurping' the working spaces and having the same civil rights as the local population. At this point, I am working on irregularized labor migrants' experiences in Canada.
Research interests.
International Mexican Migrations to North America (USA and Canada)
Indigenous Youth Studies and Sociocultural Change
Gender, Generations, and Bodies
