BIOGRAPHY

Laura Correa Ochoa is a historian of race, violence and social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on Colombia. She has a PhD in History from Harvard University and received her BA (Hons) in History and Political Science from the University of Toronto.

Her work examines how ideas of race and ethnic difference have shaped political conflicts in Colombia and how black and indigenous people have mobilized in the face of persistent discrimination and violence. As a Rice Academy Fellow, Laura will focus on turning her dissertation, Black and Indigenous Entanglements: Race, Mobilization and Citizenship in Colombia 1930-1991, into a book manuscript under the mentorship of Dr. Caleb McDaniel. The book will explore the histories of black and indigenous political mobilization in Colombia from the 1930s to the present and draw connections with the experiences of political activism of black and indigenous people elsewhere in the Americas, including in the United States. By studying the histories of black and indigenous mobilization under the same analytical frame her project seeks to deepen our understanding of how racial and economic hierarchies are produced and contested in Latin American societies and the possibilities for building cross-class and cross-racial political movements.

Outside of work she loves to run, read for fun and listen to ‘old’ Latin American music.