Esther Díaz Martín Lecture: Feminist Politics in Chicana/Latina Podcasting

Esther Díaz Martín, Latin American and Latino Studies & Gender and Women’s Studies
2021-2022 Faculty Fellow

Feminist Politics in Chicana/Latina Podcasting

302 SCE and via Zoom 

Between 2015-2016, there was a marked increase in podcasts hosted and produced by Latinas voicing intersectional perspectives. This talk discusses three prominent Chicana/Latina podcasts based in Southern California: Super Mamás, Locatora Radio, and Chicana M(other)work. Using a nepantlera critical listening methodology, which attends to the gendered performance of sound that marks feminist discourses, I discuss how Chicana/Latina locutoras voice and sound out strategic self-representations that reflect the politics of their sitio y lengua within their varied cultural contexts.

Esther Díaz Martín is an Assistant Professor in Latin American and Latino Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies at UIC. She received her Ph.D. in Iberian and Latin American Languages and Cultures from The University of Texas at Austin (2018). Her publications on the topic of feminism in popular culture appear in Diálogo, Spanish and Portuguese Review, Chicana/Latina Studies, and Voices from The Ancestors: Xicanx and Latinx Spiritual Expressions and Healing Practices (ed. Medina and Gonzales, 2020). Her current book manuscript titled, “Latina Radiophonic Feminism(s): Sounding Gender Politics into the Digital Age,” features the stories and politics of contemporary Chicana/Latina DJ and talk radio hosts in U.S. Spanish-language radio and podcasting. This interdisciplinary project draws from radio, popular culture, and sound studies re-articulating these fields through a Chicana feminist framework that centers the gendered voice as an entry point to tune-in to Latina politics.