The WGSI would like to congratulate PhD candidate Adriana Marcela Pérez Rodríguez on being awarded the Graduate Award for Scholarly Achievement in the Area of Gender-Based Violence. Established in 2016, the award recognizes students who have made distinctive contributions in the area of gender-based violence research and prevention.
Adriana Marcela Pérez Rodríguez is a Colombian feminist researcher. Her PhD dissertation is located in her hometown, Cúcuta, Colombia, at the Colombian-Venezuelan border, during the years known nationally as the “migrant crisis” following the arrival in Colombia of Venezuelans and Colombian returnees fleeing Venezuela. Adriana studies how an entanglement of actors (international humanitarian agencies, Colombian state institutions, national and local NGOs) produces a female humanitarian subject as a victim of violence, and the Colombian-Venezuelan border as a site of crisis and intervention.
Prior to her PhD studies, Adriana co-founded and directed the Observatorio de Asuntos de Género de Norte de Santander, an organisation dedicated to feminist research and advocacy in Cúcuta. She has also been a columnist for the local newspaper La Opinión.
Adriana is currently a fellow at the Instituto Pensar of the Universidad Javeriana, Colombia. She was a 2024-2025 R.F. Harney Graduate Research Fellow in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies at the Munk School. Her studies are funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship and the Connaught International Scholarship for Doctoral Students. Her areas of study are border studies, transnational feminism, NGOisation, citizenship and Latin American feminist movements. Her work has been published in journals such as Feminist Review and Ethnicities, as well as in the Humanitarian Exchange Magazine and NACLA.
We asked Adriana what receiving this award means to her: “I learnt to protest against patriarchal violence in the dry heat of my border home. If I’m here today, it’s because of the compañeras in Cúcuta, and in different parts of Colombia, who have taught me about rage, joy, care, and the will to change everything, even when the outlook is uncertain. I also wish to thank my committee and everyone in the WGSI who have nurtured and sustained me during this PhD process.”
Read this write-up on the Office of the Vice Provost website about Adriana.
Congratulations, Adriana!