Zeles Vargas

Zeles Vargas

Graduate Student, Anthropology

Zeles Vargas’s research is broadly interested in how racialized queer subjects create and challenge violent realities. He investigates how the combination of Argentina’s pro-LGBT investments and everyday anti-gay violence affect gay men’s quotidian world-building and their struggle to survive. His work focuses on racialized gay men (read in Argentina as non-European) and their experiences in the city and the violence to which they are subjected. Building on the work of queer of color theorists, his research examines how anti-gay violence in Argentina is both a racial and sexual practice. The complexity of this case study is further complicated by the racial and ethnic histories of Argentina that are crucial to sustaining whiteness.