Publications

Book Manuscripts

Zwingel, Susanne, Brianna N. Hernandez, and Luisa Turbino Torres, eds. 2025. Feminist Responses to Crises and Dehumanization: Transnational Scholar-Activist Perspectives. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003498803.

Feminist Responses to Crises and Dehumanization brings together academic knowledge with activist strategies and lived experiences from different socio-geographic angles––bridging the gap between theory and on-the-ground impact. The experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare humanity’s existential vulnerabilities. But ecological, economic, political, reproductive, and other instabilities have also shown us how we are connected to non-human species and planet Earth, and how human practices that have long normalized devaluation have in fact created the contemporary multi-crisis. In response to this historical moment, this book articulates visions toward fairer, more caring, and sustainable societies. It brings together feminist and queer scholars and scholar-activists from different world regions who write about critical crisis issues, offer reinterpretations of these crises and develop strategies of resistance. The contributions focus on three dimensions of crisis—ecological devastation and economic exploitation; political authoritarianism and violence; and the denial of reproductive justice and bodily autonomy—and combine systemic and situated analysis with a focus on agency. This volume will appeal to scholars and students interested in transnational feminism, in areas such as Gender Studies, Political Science, Social Studies, and International Relations.

Turbino Torres, Luisa. The Politics of Being a Soccer Fan: Feminist Activism around Soccer in Brazil. Proposal in preparation.

Drawing from years of digital ethnography, in-person participant observation and interviews, and archival work, this book addresses changes in soccer fandom by looking at the recent emergence of many supporter groups that identify with feminism and their work to create a new way of being a soccer fan. I look at these transformations from a gender perspective and argue that fan organizing and its connection to broader political movements is a key explanation for all of these recent changes in soccer spaces. Thus, I engage with the concept of “fandom activism” around soccer from a feminist perspective. The main argument of this book is twofold. First, it argues that feminist soccer fandom activism has catalyzed change in soccer culture while connecting to broader activist networks. Second, it shows how these soccer fandom groups are the space in which many of these women have contact with feminist praxis for the first time and how they come to understand their feminist identity. Many of the fans who engage with these feminist groups share experiences of hostility while participating in soccer spaces and participate in these groups as a way of re-imagining soccer fandom as a relevant platform in the current political, economic, and social contexts.

Peer Review Articles under review

Rethinking Vulnerability in Qualitative Research: Exploring How R1’s IRBs Define Vulnerable Populations. Co-Authored with Barbara Perez

The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education currently designates 187 institutions as “Very High Research Activity”, commonly known as “R1” institutions (American Council on Education). This paper analyzes how these institutions’ Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) define “vulnerable populations”, discussing the wide variation in not only across how this term is defined, but also the variation across IRB guidelines for research involving this population. More specifically, this paper explores the questions of: (1) how/why undocumented immigrants and refugees are usually not included in IRBs’ definition of vulnerable populations, and (2) what are the implications of that for qualitative research within the social sciences? Finally, this paper argues that there is an urgent need for rethinking research ethics and recognizing vulnerability in all research participants.

Feminist Collectives in Latin American Social Movements: Lessons from Peru, Brazil, and Argentina. Co-Authored with Karla Mundim

This paper explores the role of feminist collectives (coletivos / colectivos feministas) in shaping grassroots social movements across Latin America, offering critical contributions to social movements and feminist theorizing. Feminist collectives operate horizontally and cooperatively, emphasizing broader goals of gender justice rooted in local contexts. We focus on the intersections of gender, class, and race to examine how these collectives mobilize against various forms of oppression, including gender-based violence, Indigenous dispossession, and economic inequality. Through a qualitative comparative analysis of key collectives from three Latin American cases—Peru, Brazil, and Argentina—we highlight the adaptability and diversity of feminist organizing and the capacity of certain movement configurations to challenge both state power and neoliberal capitalist frameworks. We conclude that feminist collectives are not only central to advancing feminist agendas but also consequential to broader struggles for social justice and democracy, making them key potential drivers of political change beyond Latin America.

“Understanding the Role of Regional International Organizations in the Implementation of International Norms: The Case of Domestic Violence in Brazil”

This article discusses the implementation of women’s rights regionally recognized as domestic policy in Latin America, using specifically the case of violence against women in Brazil. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found the Brazilian state guilty of violating the Belem do Pará Convention and systemically failing to investigate and punish domestic violence. In combination with a domestically favorable scenario—more receptive to women’s rights issues and concerned with the Brazilian regional leadership—a comprehensive law on domestic violence – The Maria da Penha Law – was approved.  I explore the question of how regional norms are implemented domestically, but more specifically, how are global norms and institutions in Latin America shaping national policy processes? Which regional mechanisms create policy change?  In analyzing the case of domestic violence in Brazil, I aim to understand which mechanisms were present in the process of policy change in the country. The main argument of this article is that regional IOs can play an intermediary role in human rights norms implementation, in a way that universal membership IOs cannot, echoing the literature that highlights the effectiveness of the Inter-American Human Rights system despite the weakness of the institutional setting it is inserted.

“Collective grief and digital fieldwork during COVID-19: reflections on the emotional aspect of the field“

To do fieldwork during the COVID-19 pandemic meant dealing with an extra layer of unexpected aspects that comes with doing this type of research. For example, losing the connection to participants by not being physically in the field is a concern to interpretivist work. For me – doing work about Brazil, my own home country where most of my family still lives – also meant dealing with the emotional weight of being far away and watching my people struggle. Additionally, I dealt with grief in a way I could not ever have imagined: from having interviews canceled so participants could help with funeral arrangements to losing my grandma and not being able to be there. In this article, I explore the immense discomfort caused by my position in the discrepancies between the Global North and the Global South in terms of resources to contain the pandemic to reflect on the emotional aspects of fieldwork.

Book Chapters

Turbino Torres, L. “Shifting the Game: Soccer Feminist Fandom Activism as a Catalyst for Sporting Innovation in Brazil”. In: Boyd, J; Bowman, K (ed.). Soccer, Globalization and Innovation: The Beautiful Game in the 21st Century (Forthcoming 2025). Routledge. Critical Issues in Football Series. Pp. 57-71. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003568162

Turbino Torres, L. 2015. “International Law and International Relations in China” (Published in Portuguese). In: Ramos, Marcelo Maciel, and Fabrício Bertini Pasquot Polido. 2019. Direito Chinês Contemporâneo. Almedina.

Book Reviews

  • Turbino Torres, L. (2023). High-Risk Feminism in Colombia: Women’s Mobilization in Violent Contexts. By Julia Margaret Zulver. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. 194 pp. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 9781978827097. Politics & Gender, 1-3. doi:10.1017/S1743923X22000666

Manuscripts in Preparation

  • “Hashtag Activism: #EleNão and #NiUnaAMenos as Latin America feminist mobilization”
  • “’I love Brazilian women’: an autoethnography of the sexualization and racialization of Brazilian women in the U.S. context”

Web-based Publications

Journal Reviewer   

  • Revice – Revista de Ciências do Estado, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (ISSN: 2525-8036)
  • Revista Científica Foz, São Mateus – ES, Brazil (ISSN: 2594-8849)