Through APSA’s Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs, the Kenneth Sherrill Prize recognizes the best doctoral dissertation proposal for an empirical study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) topics in political science. The purpose of this prize is to encourage and enable empirical work on LGBT topics by graduate students, and to broaden the recognition of this work within political science.
In 2018, the Prize will award $200 to a selected PhD candidate, who will also be recognized at the APSA Awards ceremony at the Annual Meeting in Boston, MA.
Nominations must be received by Monday, February 12, 2018. Submit a nomination here!
2017 Award Recipient
Melina Juárez, University of New Mexico
“Queering Latinidad: Latinx Politics Beyond Nativity”
The process of Latinizing a tremendously heterogeneous group of people involves the softening or blurring of the edges of differences among them. This blurring has led to the erasure or subversion (intended or not) of important facets of identity including indigeneity, language, ethnicity, history, and culture. Along with this, and the focus of this project, is the erasure (again intended or not) of sexuality and how this subversion of identities impacts the way we view populations for policymaking ends. Understanding how sexuality is subverted within Latinidad also allows us to understand power dynamics within the Latinx population that affect facets of politics and policy such as what issues are considered salient for Latinxs and policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation.
This project approaches Latinidad through an intersectional framework that also considers the role of institutional forces in driving and shaping identity and peoples’ relations vis-a-vis the state and its policies. The proposed dissertation project is a continuation of a current New Mexico-based study on the social determinants of LGBTQI health and well-being. Survey results from this pilot study found that almost 60% of LGBTQI Latinx respondents said they “sometimes” or “always” felt uncomfortable around other people of their own race or ethnicity because of their LGBTQI status.
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