Candy Esther Martinez, Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latinx Studies, was selected by the School for Advanced Research as a 2025-2026 Resident Scholar for her book project Transborder Affect: The Intersection Between Emotions, Inequalities, and Healing within Oaxacan Communities. The School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico “advances creative thought and innovative work in the social sciences, humanities, and Native American arts.”

Candy’s research challenges singular causes of and responses to Indigenous Oaxacans’ emotional injuries. She poses and addresses several questions: How do Oaxacans conceptualize injury and inequality? Specifically, how do they connect emotional injury to migration and inequalities related to gender violence? And lastly, how do Oaxacan communities practice healing to alleviate emotional distress resulting from migration and social disparities?

Through ethnographic and archival research, her book examines the overlooked relation between emotions and historical, structural, and contemporary problems within Zapotec and Mixtec communities. Rather than equate Indigenous healing rituals with magical properties, Candy considers the communicative and epistemological function of rituals.

Her research broadens notions of inequality in Oaxaca by considering overlapping layers of marginalization beyond the present-day singular identifiers of inequality that reduce its understanding to cultural deficiency. It expands cultural awareness through documentation and explanation of Indigenous words used to discuss sadness, fear, and recovery linked to the hostile conditions Indigenous community members experience.