BU Sociologist Ana Villarreal Embedded in Research

By Rayea Jain (COM`26), the social science writing intern at the CAS Communications Office.

When a massive turf war took over northeastern Mexico in the mid-2000s, the line between Ana Villarreal’s personal and professional life began to blur.

“This topic chose me,” she said, referring to her first book The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis, published in May 2024. “I only became a sociologist of violence as violence became so central to the every day of people in my hometown.”

In her book, Villarreal delves into the divisiveness of fear following a sudden and highly disruptive escalation of criminal and state violence in Monterrey, Mexico.

 

To read more, visit  Arts X Scienes Magazine,  where this article originally appeared on September 9 2024.