Gema Kloppe-Santamaria is a Nicaraguan-born sociologist and historian whose work deals with questions of violence, gender, religion and the state in modern and contemporary Latin America.

She is currently a permanent Lecturer of Sociology at the University College Cork (UCC) and an Associate Research Professor of Latin American History at the George Washington University (GW).

Prior to joining UCC and George Washington University, she was an Assistant Professor at Loyola University Chicago and at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). In 2017-2018, Gema was a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Gema holds a PhD in Sociology and Historical Studies from the New School for Social Research.

Her book In the Vortex of Violence: Lynching, Extralegal Justice, and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (University of California Press, 2020) examines the uncharted history of lynching during the formative decades of the post-revolutionary period (1930-1960).  Based on an array of previously untapped historical sources, the book contributes to globalize the history of lynching beyond the United States, while offering key insights into the cultural, historical, and political reasons behind the continuing presence of lynching in Latin America today. 

Gema was the lead editor of the books Violence and Crime in Latin America: Representations and Politics(University of Oklahoma Press, 2017) and Human Security and Chronic Violence in Mexico: New Perspectives and Proposals from Below (Editorial Porrúa, 2019). 

Over the last decade, I have authored several specialized reports for the Wilson Center, the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center, the United Nations Development Program, and the International Peace Institute. I am also a collaborator and member of Noria Research’s Mexico & Central America Program.

Gema will contribute to a panel discussion entitled 

“This Land is Our Land: Confronting Extremism and Reclaiming Democracy”

on Friday evening 24th July at 7.30 at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.