Javier Porras Madero

Javier is a PhD candidate in Latin American history at Yale. He is interested in borders, identity-formation, and revolutions and counterrevolutions. His dissertation explores how Mexican and Guatemalan revolutionary and counterrevolutionary movements seeped across those nations' shared border between 1931 and 1984. He investigates how border residents-Mayas, peasants, and ladinos-strategically used their position at the edges of the nation to negotiate the meaning of national belonging and state power. By doing this, his dissertation examines the historical transformation of the Mexico-Guatemala border line across the twentieth century and the precursors to border violence in the region today. At Yale, he has been the convener for the Latin American Studies Working Group and the Latin American History Speaker Series. His current research is a continuation of his MA thesis completed at the University of California, Los Angeles, in Latin American studies. He holds a BA in Latin American studies and economics from New York University.