Kellogg Institute Doctoral Student Affiliate Laura Neftaly López-Pérez has been awarded a 2023 Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (DDRIG) from the American Political Science Association (APSA). She is one of 24 recipients nationwide.
The APSA DDRIG program provides support to enhance and improve the conduct of doctoral dissertation research in political science. Awards support basic research which is theoretically derived and empirically oriented.
López-Pérez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science Her dissertation examines the puzzling fact that it is predominantly families of disappeared persons who organize and engage in collective action to demand justice for victims. Why, in most cases, is it the families of disappeared persons who mobilize for justice? Why do they stay mobilized even though the possibilities of locating their disappeared relatives constantly decrease, and sometimes even after locating them? Her research analyzes both uncertainty and solidarity as causal explanations of variation in the duration of mobilization of families of victims. She tests her argument in Mexico, currently the country undergoing arguably the largest criminal conflict in the world.
López-Pérez is a researcher with Kellogg's Notre Dame Violence and Transitional Justice Policy and Practice Lab (V-TJ Lab) and Notre Dame Eliminating Violence Against Women (E-VAW). She has been part of the latter since its inception last year, and joined the former in her first year at Notre Dame. With teh V-TJ Lab she has played a central role in the Acapulco project, accompanying a collective of 336 relatives of missing people.
López-Pérez holds a bachelor's degree in communication studies from ITESO University and an master's degree in social sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO Mexico).