Join Bianca Graulau, an independent reporter from the island, for a discussion on the biggest issues facing the world's oldest colony. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session.

LACS Public Issue Forum in collaboration with the Puerto Rican Student Association

Funded in part by a UISFL grant to Cornell's Latin American and Caribbean Student Program (LACS) from the U.S. Department of Education. Additional support provided by the American Studies Program, the Latina/o Studies Program, and the Society for the Humanities.

With a focus on gang violence in El Salvador, Dr. Córdova’s book examines how organized criminal groups’ operations in the territories they control, and the incursion of the police and military, threaten women’s safety. The main argument establishes that gangs’ territorial control increases women’s daily risk of gender-based violence in the streets of neighborhoods and in the privacy of homes, and that this risk is perpetuated by diminished reporting rates due to widespread distrust in the police, largely resulting from increased police abuse associated with the militarization of public security. The consequences of these dynamics for women’s resistance, particularly implications for international migration, are also explored.

Dr. Córdova’s book project, supported by a 2022 Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar Award and a grant from the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, contributes to the growing literature in political science on criminal violence and militarization by identifying some of the mechanisms that explain women’s increased risk of gender-based violence in territories controlled by organized criminal groups in the midst of state repression.

Dr. Abby Córdova's project builds on and contributes to this research by examining the evidence on the effects of women’s police stations on citizens’ attitudes toward the police and gender-based violence as well as impacts on the incidence of violence against women and reporting rates in the context of Brazil.

Please join us for this virtual conversation. Register here.

About the Speaker

Dr. Abby Córdova is an associate professor of global affairs in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Córdova’s research examines the consequences of inequality and marginalization for democracy, integrating topics related to violence against women, organized crime, militarization, and international migration in the context of Central America, Mexico, and Brazil. She was awarded the Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award in 2022.

Presented by the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Co-sponsored by the Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and the Gender and Security Sector Lab.

Co-sponsored by: Landscape Architecture, Department of Natural Resources

The balance that the Gulf of Tribugá is due to the cosmovision of the peoples that inhabit it, as well as the struggle that the same inhabitants undertake in defense of their territory. The documentary Tribugá Expedition leaves a clear message: if the place is intervened with megaprojects, not only would the ecosystem be put at risk, which is currently one of the few in the world that is preserved in good condition, but it would also attack the beliefs and ways of life of the Afro and Embera peoples.

El equilibrio que tiene el Golfo de Tribugá se debe a la cosmovisión de los pueblos que lo habitan, así como a la lucha que los mismos habitantes emprenden en defensa de su territorio. El documental Expedición Tribugá deja un mensaje claro: si se interviene el lugar con megaproyectos, no solo se pondría en riesgo el ecosistema, que actualmente es de los pocos en el mundo que se conserva en buen estado, sino que también se atentaría contra las creencias y formas de vida de los pueblos afro y Embera.