Postdoc, Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University College Cork, Ireland
During her AIAS-AUFF fellowship, Andrei Kalinichev will be working on the project 'Visualising populist performance: audiovisual approaches to the study of populist imagemaking'
This project develops videographic criticism as a central methodology for understanding, exploring and communicating research on visual populist performance. Specifically, it will employ interruptive and experimental viewing techniques to deconstruct populist audiovisual media and interrogate the impact of its digital production and dissemination. In doing so, the project attempts to provide a structured framework for theorists working on populist visual materials that can be applied to global case studies regardless of differing geo-socio-political contexts. Based on my regional expertise, my own videographic interventions will focus on the social media accounts of Central American presidents Nayib Bukele (El Salvador, right-wing; 2019 – present) and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) (Mexico, left-wing; 2019-2024). The neighbouring Latin American examples provide a strategic comparison of right and left-wing dynamics while decentralising Euro-centric studies on this global political phenomenon.
Jessica Wax-Edwards is a former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Postdoctoral Fellow and has held research and teaching positions at the University College Cork in Ireland, as well the University of London and University of Cambridge in the UK. She has published numerous articles and video essays on the intersection of politics and visual representation in Latin America. Her latest video essay featured in the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound Video Essay of the Year (2025) and screened at the Marienbad International Film Festival (2026). Her research interests include memory, violence, gender technology and politics in twentieth century and contemporary Mexican visual culture. She has published articles on Latin American fiction and documentary cinema, graphic art and photography and her first monograph Documenting Violence in Calderón’s Mexico:Visual Culture, Resistance and Memorialisation was published 2023.
Project title: 'Visualising populist performance: audiovisual approaches to the study of populist imagemaking'
Area of research: Memory, violence, gender technology and politics in twentieth century and contemporary Mexican visual culture
Fellowship period: 1 Sep 2026 - 31 Jul 2028
Fellowship type: AIAS-AUFF Fellow
Contact: TBA
This fellowship has received funding from The Aarhus University Research Foundation (AUFF)
