Ana Ramos-Zayas
Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas received her BA in Economics and Latin American Studies from Yale College, and her MA/PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University. She is the author of National Performances: Class, Race, and Space in Puerto Rican Chicago (The University of Chicago Press, 2003; ASA Latino Studies Book Award, 2006) and Street Therapists: Affect, Race, and Neoliberal Personhood in Latino Newark (The University of Chicago Press, 2012; Frank Bonilla Book Award 2010-12). She is also co-author of Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship (Routledge, 2003). Ramos-Zayas has published journal articles in the fields of youth culture, race and critical race theory, citizenship and migration, the anthropology of emotion and affect. Prior to joining Yale in 2017, Ramos-Zayas conducted post-doctoral work in Educational Evaluation Research at Harvard; taught at Rutgers University-New Brunswick; and occupied the Valentin Lizana y Parrague Endowed Chair at the City University of New York.
Ramos-Zayas’ ethnographic work aims to understand and disentangle systems of power and privilege at a variety of scales, ranging from U.S. imperial and white supremacist politics to how individuals and communities make sense of everyday forms of power and subordination. Issues of social justice and the intersection of intimate worlds and political economic structures are fundamental concerns in her research. She is currently working on an ethnographic project tentatively titled Sovereign Parenting: Affluence, Race, and Parenting in Ipanema (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and El Condado (San Juan, Puerto Rico), which considers the intersection of sovereignty, austerity politics, and parenting in two affluent Latin American neighborhoods. Ramos-Zayas is also participating in the NEH’s Newest Americans Project in Newark, NJ, where she hopes to produce a visual ethnography on the urban altars Latina/o youth build to commemorate death.
Recent Publications Include:
Ramos-Zayas, Ana Y., Raça, Babás e a Intimidade do Poder nos Bairros de Ipanema e El Condado. Revista de Ciências Sociais, Forthcoming, April 2017
Ramos-Zayas, Ana Y., and Ulla Berg (co-authored). Racializing Affect: A Theoretical Proposition. Current Anthropology. Featured/Anchor Article for the Journal Issue, Volume 56, no. 5, October, 2015, pp.654-677.
Ramos-Zayas, Ana Y. Learning Affect, Embodying Race. Transforming Anthropology, Volume 19, Issue 2, October 2011, pp. 86-104.
Ramos-Zayas, Ana Y. Urban Erotics and Racial Affect in a Neoliberal “Racial Democracy”: Brazilian and Puerto Rican Youth in Newark, New Jersey. Identities, Volume 16, Issue 5, 2009, pp. 513-47.