Sonia E. Alvarez, Leonard J. Horwitz Professor of Latin American Politics in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies (CLACLS) at UMass Amherst, has received a Fulbright Lecturer/Research Award to support her research on feminism in Brazil.

"Feminism in Brazil today not only has been 'mainstreamed' so that it extends vertically across different levels of government, the full party spectrum, and a variety of national and international policy arenas," says Alvarez.  "But it has also been 'sidestreamed,' spreading horizontally into an array of social classes, racial-ethnic groups, and social and cultural spaces, including parallel social movements."

This "sidestreaming" of feminism, specifically among Black, youth, and rural landless organizations, will form the focus of her Fulbright research.  As a Fulbright Scholar, Alvarez seeks to document the processes by which feminist agendas and movements in Brazil have been transformed. "While much has been written about gender mainstreaming, we know relatively little about how and why feminist discourses and practices have traveled into other spheres of civil society," she says.

While in Brazil, Professor Alvarez will also spend two months each at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and the Federal University of Bahia, where she will offer intensive faculty and graduate student seminars on the changing dynamics of women's movements in Latin America.

The 2013 award is not Alvarez's first entry into the Fulbright community. She is a previous recipient of a Fulbright-CIES Lecture-Research Award (1992) and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship (1982-83).

As a Fulbright Scholar and Alumnus, Alvarez stands among many other distinguished scholars. According to Tom Healy, Fulbright Chair, "Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs, university presidents, journalists, artists, professors and teachers. They have been awarded 43 Nobel Prizes."