Andrea Bolivar

Dr. Andrea Bolivar is a cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of Transgender Studies, Latinx studies, and Feminist Studies. Her book manuscript, “We Are a Fantasy:” Trans Latina Ways of Knowing, Being, and Loving, ethnographically examines the experiences of sex working transgender Latinas in the Chicago metropolitan area. It centers sex working trans Latinas’ epistemologies and ontologies, especially concerning five interrelated themes: fantasía, life/death, the body, immigration, and race--particularly Blackness and anti-Blackness. Further, We Are a Fantasy demonstrates how sex working trans Latina ways of being and knowing not only defy racist-cisgenderism more broadly, but also offer potentialities beyond transnormativity and normative Latinidad. Dr. Bolivar’s work is published or forthcoming in journals such as Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Feminist Anthropology, Latinx Talk and edited volumes on queer nightlife and Latinx ethnography. Dr. Bolivar received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and held an LSA Collegiate Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She currently serves on the board of the Association of Latin@/x Anthropologists, and as the first in her family to graduate high school, is committed to supporting diversity in academia.