Profile
Abstract
Karen Silva-Torres is a member and lecturer of the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University, where she contributes to the institute's digital learning strategies and the coordination of the M.A. Global Studies with a Special Emphasis on Peace and Security in Africa.
She got her doctoral degree in 2023 at the Institute of Anthropology, and she was a member of the Graduate School of Global and Area Studies.
Her research interests involve journalistic practices, digitization and affectivity, social media and political activism, and media and politics in Latin America. Her most recent publication in English is the co-edited volume Social and Political Transitions During the Left Turn in Latin America, New York and London: Routledge (2021). She is co-founder of the Coloquio de Estudios Latinoamericanos en Leipzig (CEL-Le).
Education
- 10/2016 - 11/2023
Ph.D. in Anthropology. Institute of Anthropology. Leipzig UniversityDissertation title: A sense of the Public Interest. Journalism and the Rise of the Ecuadorian Public Media in Digital Times. - 10/2016 - 04/2020
PhD Program, Graduate School of Global and Area Studies, Leipzig University (Germany) - 10/2009 - 04/2013
MA Visual Anthropology and Anthropologic Documentary FilmTitle Dissertation: Communication and Politics: Media and the construction of the political capital of the Social Christian Party Leaders in Guayaquil. (Originally in Spanish)Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), Quito – Ecuador. - 04/2003 - 07/2007
BA Journalist with a minor in CultureCatholic University of Santiago of Guayaquil, Guayaquil - Ecuador.
- show detailsSilva Torres, K. A.; Villarreal Velásquez, J."El salvador de la ciudad": la construcción del capital político y los vínculos discursivos entre medios y política en GuayaquilRevista de Historia Social y de las Mentalidades. 2021. pp. 67–108.
- show detailsSilva Torres, K. A.; Rozo Higuera, C.; Leon Barboza, D. S. (Eds.)Social and Political Transitions During the Left Turn in Latin America RoutledgeNew York: Routledge. 2021.
- show detailsConferenceLatin American Transitions: Processes of reconfigurationGlobal and European Studies Institute; Research Academy LeipzigEvent Organiser: Silva Torres, Karen Andrea; Rozo Higuera, Carolina; Leon Barboza, Daniel Simon; Carrizo de Reimann, Agustina16/10/2019 – 18/10/2019
- show detailsConferenceLatin American Transitions: Understanding Social and Political Transformations across the RegionGlobal and European Studies Institute; Research Academy LeipzigEvent Organiser: Silva Torres, Karen Andrea; Rozo Higuera, Carolina; Leon Barboza, Daniel Simon17/10/2018 – 18/10/2018
- show detailsConferenceLatin American Transitions: Disruptions of Latin American Democracies: Roots and dynamics of contemporary conflictsGlobal and European Studies Institute; Research Academy Leipzig; Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe)Event Organiser: Silva Torres, Karen Andrea; Rozo Higuera, Carolina; Leon Barboza, Daniel Simon; Carrizo de Reimann, Agustina24/06/2021 – 25/06/2021
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Transnational Protests and Digital Activism in Social Media
The course examines the role of web 2.0 in enabling and facilitating transnational protests, multiplying interactions and cultural transfers among participants and groups worldwide. We introduce different disciplinary approaches to social media, and social movements from history, sociology, media studies and anthropology, providing a conceptual framework and analytical tools for dealing with transnational digital protests from the global studies perspective.
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Methods for the Study of Globalisation
The methods seminar provides a space for joint reading and discussion of texts on methodology in global studies. The structure of the course follows the research process, and students are expected to participate actively and encouraged to engage in the development of their own mini-research during the course.
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Social Media, Participatory Culture and Globalization
The course examines social media from the global studies perspective. It takes distance from diffusionist models of cultural globalization, global studies stress polycentrism and synchronicity as revealed in multiplying cultural transfers and interactions. Broadly situated within the emerging field of digital humanities, the course addresses several changes introduced by social media in the process of knowledge production and cultural globalization.
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Introduction to Social Science Theories on Globalisation Tutorial
Building on the theoretical perspectives discussed in the 720 Lecture International Studies, the tutorial aims at enhancing more procedural/ technical skills of accumulated reading, adequate referencing and contextualization. The tutorial is organized as a reading course that aims for an in-depth reflection on traditional globalization research and its development in the social sciences.
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Anthropology of Media
The seminar explores the main anthropological debates on media as key objects of study for understanding society and culture. Media has been studied as social institutions, technologies of representation, and tools of communication. In contrast, this seminar explores media as cultural practices, which shape identities, social relationships, institutions, and spaces of resistance.