Research Statement

Adrianna M. Santos

As an expert in both cultural studies and social movements, my research is informed by the scholarship of literary criticism, performance studies, critical race, gender and sexuality theory, and trauma studies. My particular expertise in Chicana/o literature and culture and Woman of Color feminisms includes specific strengths in representation and cultural production, social justice and hybrid identity. My interdisciplinary scholarship also includes research interests in queer studies, reproductive justice, transnational studies, and film and media studies. My theoretical framework is grounded in women of color feminisms, a critical lens that examines structural oppression in its many forms as a complex and interwoven web of intersecting power dynamics. My methodology is interdisciplinary, comprised of formal and decolonizing literary criticisms, discourse analysis, and ethnographic research methods like oral history.

My dissertation explicitly examines works of fiction by Chicana writers. In “Radical Storytelling: Reading Chicana Survival Narratives,” I argue that Chicanas engage in creating revolutionary narrative forms as a theoretical and practical framework for ending violence. I define this process as transformative narrativity, a form of cultural production that is rooted in a nuanced comprehension of the connections between victimization, survival, and healing. I contend that certain texts which I deem “survival narratives” re-inscribe experiences of rape and sexual assault through representation and potentially lead to political action that inspires a transformation of the existing social order, emphasizing cultural survival, and exemplifying the idea of art as activism. I focus on literature written in the past twenty years in which sexual assault is a central theme and investigate the potential impact of such works as they contribute to anti-violence movements and Chicana/o communities. My research brings a Chicana feminist perspective to the ways that cultural critics approach rape narratives and trauma studies and how literature can be an effective catalyst for social change. I examine the historical legacy of sexual abuse in Chicana/o communities, and investigate the culture of silence that perpetuates patriarchal oppression. Each of the texts I examine represent survivors fighting against objectification and subordination in their everyday lives by enacting agency and choosing to maneuver, rebel, negotiate and question oppressive social circumstances.

My dissertation is comprised of the following components: In Chapter One, “The Culture of Silence: Discourses of Rape and Survival,” I explore the legacy of colonization that contextualizes Chicana survival narratives. I tease out the nuances of a “rape culture” as well as the distinctions of cultural silence and memory within the specific social strictures of Chicana/o communities as understood through a feminist lens. This is followed by Chapter Two, “Wounding is a Deeper Healing:’ Transformative Narrativity in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street,” which explores how Mexican American women writers engage in what I call radical storytelling by revisiting a landmark text that has indelibly changed the Chicana literary landscape and continues to shape its new directions. In Chapter Three, “Women without Bodies: Rape as a Metaphor in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God,” my analysis centers on the representation of sexual violence as allegory for heteropatriarchy. More specifically, I demonstrate how Castillo uses rape as a metaphor in her novel to interrogate patriarchal structures of oppression. Chapter Four, “Mythology and the Convicted Survivor: Victimization in Lucha Corpi’s Black Widow’s Wardrobe” examines the detective novel as a political space of resistance and as an alternative pathway to creating anti-violence discourse. My concluding remarks in “Beyond Survival: New Directions in Violence Studies” look beyond survival as a theoretical model to a potential for healing collective trauma, and parses how radical storytelling contributes to the ongoing Chicana/o movement for social justice by breaking the silence of gender violence.

In contrast to other scholars who have interpreted Chicana writing about violence primarily in terms of racial, gender, and sexual oppression, in my dissertation I engage the language of survival utilized by activist organizations, which is paramount to understanding the impact of narrative to community and frames the works I identify as resistance literature. I recognize, however, that an important aspect of this literature is looking beyond survival to strategies for healing and contextualize the narratives within this understanding. I expect this research to contribute to conversations about the potentials of cultural production to inform social justice movements. My scholarly publication record is auspicious, as I have begun converting the dissertation into a book manuscript.

My imminent plans for future projects include comparative ethnic studies of Black and Chicana women’s cultural production, including continuing the work foregrounded by other women of scholars that unsettles the idea of “home” as safe space. I plan to conduct research featuring contemporary activists who employ spoken word as activism to combat social injustice. My projects will make contributions not only in Chicana/o Studies, but also in the fields of literature, feminist studies, cultural studies, audience/spectator studies, testimonio studies, and studies about social and cultural movements. I will also use this research to develop a study on black and brown women and technology, specifically the potentials of Internet interventions like websites, blogs, online journals, zines, and social networking sites as tools of techno-cultural movements. 

Protest literature in the hands of a passionate readership has the potential to spark the individual and collective action that drives social justice movements. Moreover, grassroots organizing through alternative cultural forms generates pathways to healing for subjugated peoples. Because of the failure of state-funded anti-violence models to combat the repressive structures that facilitate oppression, it is more critical than ever that activist scholars help understand and meet the needs of survivors and marginalized communities by continuing to encourage art forms as pathways to social transformation.