Recipient of the 2023 SHF x Cultural Studies Award

I have been announced as the winner of the 2023 SHF x Cultural Studies Award in recognition for my article ‘SoHo as virtual theatre: performing gender, race, and class in 21st-century Colombia’ which was published in Cultural Studies vol. 36, no. 1 (January 2022).

Hereby the words from the awarding committee:

‘It was difficult to decide the winner of the SHF x Cultural Studies Award this year, because all shortlisted papers ably combined advanced theoretical understanding with an interesting empirical-contextual focus. However, for its notable liveliness and ‘hybrid’ blending of ‘Hallian’ cultural studies and Colombian cultural politics, we selected Isis Giraldo’s article to be awarded.

This paper understands the ideological significance of one specific cultural artefact/project as a ‘virtual theatre’ through which many facets of its Colombian social context are displayed and condensed. The article offers a range of illuminating observations; it is also theoretically bold. The importance of the Latin American ‘coloniality of power’ framework is acknowledged, yet the author registers some reservations too, more generally pressing the continuing importance of Birmingham-style cultural studies, especially its gender dimension (in close conjunction with race and class). An energetic and engaging study.’

This Award is ‘a collaboration between the Stuart Hall Foundation and the Routledge/Taylor & Francis journal Cultural Studies and seeks to recognise an article by an early career scholar that best captures, and/or makes the most significant contribution to, Cultural Studies as Stuart Hall envisioned it, furthering Hall’s interests, commitments and spirit as a political intellectual.’

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