AAHHE Outstanding Dissertation Award (ODA) Webinar

(In)Visibilities in the U.S. Imperial Academy: Central American Knowledge Production Outside of Disciplinary Borders

Wednesday, June 3, 2026
2:00 - 3:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PT

Register Here

Eileen Michelle Gálvez, PhD
Independent Scholar
Colorado State University

Dissertation Title: (In)Visibilities in the U.S. Imperial Academy: Central American Knowledge Production Outside of Disciplinary Borders
Degree Discipline: Higher Education
Degree Granting Institution: Colorado State University 

Description

Eileen’s dissertation is a transdisciplinary ethnographic study co-constructed with U.S. Central American faculty to examine how they experience and navigate social and epistemic invisibilities. Its critical qualitative design employed Central American-informed methods–including research accompaniment, diasporic storytelling, and Black and Indigenous Central American feminist practices of re/memory– to analyze oral histories, cultural artifacts, and archival documents. The study’s findings reveal interconnectivities between coloniality, (in)visibilities, the U.S. Empire, and its academy. It also offers testimonial narratives of resistance and epistemic sovereignty, illustrates ancestral archival methodologies that promote intergenerational healing, and articulates a Black Central American Caribbean consciousness that constructs liberatory, diasporic futurities.