Roosbelinda
Cárdenas González
Associate Professor
Education
Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
M.A., Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
B.A., Economics and Anthropology/Sociology, Swarthmore College
Bio
Roosbelinda Cárdenas González is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Her research and teaching examine race, racialization, whiteness, critical security studies, social movements, political violence, citizenship, and social
justice in Latin America and the Global South. Cárdenas' scholarship has focused particularly on Afro-Colombian political mobilization and
the ways racialized communities negotiate citizenship, territory, rights, and political belonging.
Her book, Raising Two Fists: Struggles for Black Citizenship in Multicultural Colombia (Stanford University Press, 2024), examines Afro-Colombian struggles for territorial rights, political recognition, and historical redress in the context of Colombia's multicultural turn, armed conflict, and forced displacement.
Her current research extends this work in two interconnected directions. First, she studies whiteness as a transnational structure of power, focusing on the spatial production and reproduction of whiteness and its relationship to racial inequality. Second, her work in critical security studies examines the racialized and colonial foundations of contemporary security regimes and the alternative forms of collective protection developed by communities and social movements in response to state violence, militarization, and structural insecurity in the Global South. She uses the concept of alter-securities to explore practices of security that seek to cultivate human and non-human life rather than reproduce violence and inequality.
Her work brings together cultural anthropology, critical race theory, feminist theory, decolonial thought, and social movement studies. She is committed to engaged and interdisciplinary scholarship that connects anthropological research with contemporary struggles for racial justice and social transformation.
JJC Affiliations
Courses Taught
ANT 100 — Youth and Justice in New York City
ANT 101 — Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (in English and Spanish)
ANT 208 — Urban Anthropology
ANT 332 — Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Anthropological Perspective
ANT 380 — Colonialism, Coloniality, and Decolonization in Latin America
HON 380 — Justice and Injustice in Latin America
Professional Memberships
American Anthropological Association
Latin American Studies Association
Languages
Scholarly Work
Cárdenas is the author of Raising Two Fists: Struggles for Black Citizenship in Multicultural Colombia (Stanford University Press, 2024), a monograph examining Afro-Colombian political mobilization, citizenship, territorial rights, multiculturalism, displacement, and historical
reparations.
Her scholarship has appeared in journals and edited collections spanning anthropology, Latin American studies, critical race studies, and science and technology studies. Her recent work increasingly centers on critical studies of whiteness and the relationship between race, space, and power in Latin America, while her work in critical security studies examines alternative forms of security developed by communities and social movements in the Global South.
Honors and Awards
CUNY Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP), 2025–2026
CUNY Black, Race & Ethnic Studies Initiative Seed Grant
Wenner Gren Foundation (Dissertation: Engaged Research; Workshop Grants)
Right to Discipline, Antipode Foundation Grant
American Association of University Women Publication Grant
Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar Postdoctoral Fellowship, Rutgers University
Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship
SSRC Fellowship for International Collaboration
University of California Chancellor's Dissertation-Year Fellowship
Research Summary
Roosbelinda Cárdenas is a cultural anthropologist whose research examines how racial formations shape political life, citizenship, territory, security, and struggles for justice in Latin America and the Global South. Her early ethnographic work in Colombia explored Afro-descendant struggles for territorial rights, political recognition, and racial justice amid the country's multicultural turn, armed conflict, and displacement, culminating in her book Raising Two Fists. Her current research extends this foundation through two interconnected agendas. The first theorizes whiteness as a transnational structure of power that organizes access to space, resources, and political recognition; her project on Transnational Whiteness and the Aspirational Making of Global Cities in Latin America examines how racial hierarchies are reproduced across urban centers, bridging race, urban studies, and decolonial theory. The second, grounded in critical security studies, investigates how racialized and colonial power shapes militarization, policing, and state violence, while also examining how communities build alternative forms of protection—a concept she terms "alter-securities." Together, these projects illuminate how racialized communities contest dominant political orders and imagine new modes of citizenship and belonging. Cárdenas's interdisciplinary approach draws on critical race studies, feminist theory, decolonial thought, and social movement studies.