My name is Andrea Roman Alfaro [two last names]. My pronouns are she/ella. I am a Peruvian Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Toronto. I was born and raised in the coastal province of Callao, but my family roots are in the Peruvian northern Andes, northern Lima, and the south of Spain. I currently reside in Tkaronto [Toronto], the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee peoples.
My research agenda looks at how race, class, and gender shape people's interpretations, experiences, and responses to violence. I study violence by examining its horizontal (how violence moves across private and public spaces) and vertical (how violence moves across individual, community, and societal scales) dimensions. In particular, I focus on marginalized women’s experiences of violence. Since violence affects the structure of families and social relations, and women are at the centre of these relations, their understandings and responses to violence highlight how violence occurs and reproduces. |
My research is guided by three main questions:
1) What are the cultural narratives that affect how people make sense of violence? 2) How do we respond, resist, and heal from violence?3) How do class, race, and gender affect our definitions, experiences, and responses to violence? Together, these questions contribute to understanding the social dynamics and political processes that make violence possible. My work has been supported by the Vanier Candada Graduate scholarship, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Connaught Public Impact Fellowship, the Mary H. Beatty Fellowship, the School of Cities Graduate Fellowship at the University of Toronto, Sociologists for Women in Society, and the American Sociological Association. |
I am a scholar and activist who combines research with community work and advocacy. I firmly believe in the transformative power of engaged scholarship. Thus, I spend a lot of my time working with community, collectively responding to social justice issue, and creating alternatives for a more just future. I am the General Vice President of CUPE 3902, the union that represents more than 10,000 academic workers at the University of Toronto. I am also a co-founder of La Casa Juvenil - Puerto Nuevo, a youth community centre in Puerto Nuevo (Callao, Peru) that offers a space for children and adults to come together to learn and spend a good time. You can support the work that we do here.
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