Elisa Herrera Altamirano
Biography:
Elisa Herrera Altamirano (eherreraal@uoc.edu) holds a PhD in Information and Knowledge Society (UOC), a Master in Gender Studies (UNIBO-UGR) and a BA in Psychology (UAQ). She has a mixed profile in research and social intervention and has experience working as a psychotherapist in programs of care and prevention of gender violence in indigenous, rural, urban and public health contexts (2009-2013).
Interested in the anthropology of the body from a posthumanist and feminist approach, her research project focuses on the exploration of “running” as a sport, leisure and recreation in everyday life. It works with mobile ethnographic methodologies with urban runners, exploring the ways in which “bodies that run” are “emplaced” and configured relationally in continuity with the urban space and with digital technologies. In 2017, as part of her doctoral thesis, she began to work on the “Capicúa MovLab” project, an applied research laboratory that explores posthuman corporality in everyday life. Her first «provocation» called «Running Adrifts: the memory of water in Querétaro», activates «running» as a vehicle of critical action during the collective exploration of the hydraulic system of the city. Through studying emotions, perceptions and sensations of bodies in movement and in connection with the urban space, she began the mapping of critical areas of the city where urban interventions of regeneration and environmental awareness can potentially be carried out.
Her research interests revolve around the intersection of sport, bodies, digital technologies, subjectivity, affections, senses, emotions, posthumanism, feminism, gender, ethnography, mobility-movement, urban studies, environmentalism, activism of life everyday and new materialisms.
Publications (since 2017):
Herrera-Altamirano, E (upcoming 2021). Beyond the finish line: the potentia of the running body and its response-ability to the planet. Martí, J. & Enguix, B. (Eds.), Thinking Anthropology in Posthumanist terms. CSIC Press, Barcelona, Spain.
Herrera-Altamirano, E. (2019). Barcelona Runner: turism, the city and posthuman bodies. Eracle. Journal of Sport and Social Sciences, 2, 64-77.
Herrera-Altamirano, E. & Enguix, B. (2019). Bodies that run: urban continuums and becomings from a feminist ethnographic approach. RELACES. Latin American Magazine of Studies on Body, Emotions and Society 11(30), 22-34.
Herrera-Altamirano, E. (2018). Poster: The Memory of Water: Running Adrifts throughout the hydraulic system of the city. presented at the RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale Festival # r3fest in Paris School of Arts and Culture, University of Kent.
Competitive Research Projects (since 2017):
1. CAPICÚA MOVLAB. Applied research laboratory on «relational and emplaced bodies» and their activist potential in everyday life from feminist ethnographic methodologies. (Start date: October 2017 – to date) (FB / IG). www.thecapicuaproject.com | Capicúa MovLab
2. Research and field work with runners / prisoners of the Brians II Penitentiary Center. Follow-up of runners heading for the Marathon of Barcelona 2019, investigating “emplaced masculinities”. (November 2018)
Dissemination:
Participation in congresses:
- Conference: «Bodies that run: Cartographies of Contemporary Subjectivities». Gender Institute, Autonomous University of Querétaro (December 5, 2017)
- «Running Adrifts: The Memory of Water in Queretaro». Urban activity consisting of running three routes (15km in total) to know the hydraulic architecture of the city with objectives of ethnographic reflection on the bodies located in the urban context from posthumanist approaches. (9, 14 and 16 December 2017). Organized by Capicúa MovLab
- Participation in the RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale Festival # r3fest in Paris School of Arts and Culture, University of Kent. (November 2018)