EMILIA MARIA
DURAN ALMARZA

My research focuses on the intersections of critical race studies, gender, and decolonizing epistemologies as tools to engage contemporary Caribbean and African diasporic theater, literature and performance. My academic work stems from my participation as a full-time researcher at the nationally accredited research group Intersections (IDI-2021-000101). In this context, I have developed independent research lines that are positioned at the crossroads of contemporary Caribbean studies, (Afro) Latinx studies, and Black postcolonial studies with a marked social orientation towards building equalitarian societies along gender and racial lines (SDG 5, 17). As an expert in Caribbean, AfroLatinx and Black studies in Spain, I have contributed to the development of these fields through publications with high field-weight citation impact on works by Josefina Báez and Akwaeke Emezi (Durán-Almarza 2012, 2022), a monograph on Dominican-American performers (Durán-Almarza 2010) and 3 edited volumes on the literary and performative works of Black women writers (Durán-Almarza & Álvarez-López 2014), Afropolitan aesthetics and practices (Durán-Almarza, Kabir & Rodríguez-González 2019) and the performative dimension of cultures of equality (Durán-Almarza, Rodríguez-González & Clisby, 2022). In these areas I have also co-supervised PhD theses that explore Caribbean and African literary and performative issues, convened research conferences and seminars, and given presentations at international conferences, some of them by invitation. Currently, I am exploring postcolonial performance art, centering the ways in which planetary epistemologies and ethics of care towards more-than-human ecologies are mobilized in contemporary artworks. In 2022, I received a “Beca de recualificación de profesorado universitario” funded by the National R&D program, which allowed me to spend 2 years in the research group led by Prof. Dr. Buikema at Utrecht U. and to cooperate with other researchers at the forefront of developing post-humanist theoretical & methodological approaches to postcolonial media and visual materials. One of the most relevant results of this cooperation was the successful design of CR-629-CoastARTS (2025-2027), a competitive research project funded through the HERA-CHANSE call on Crisis, coordinated by Prof. Dr Gilbert (Royal Holloway London). As PI of the Spanish team, I delve into the ways in which the littoral is conceptualized by Caribbean artists as multispecies contact zones (Pratt) where colonial histories and environmental crises collide. This research will be developed in cooperation with external stakeholders (art collectives, cultural institutions, and a Center for the Study of Climate Change), and with artists and performers from postcolonial worlds. I am also a research team member of UE-22-EUTERPE-101073012. EUTERPE, where I coordinate WP6, supervise a MSC PhD project and contribute to the joint publications with chapters on Caribbean diasporic thinking in Europe.