Anthropology trainee Argenis Hurtado Moreno has been named a 2022 Ford Foundation PreDoctoral Fellow. This three year fellowship is awarded to students who have demonstrated superior academic achievement and are committed to a career in teaching and research at the University or College level. 

In his research, Argenis examines migration, gender, race, kinship, social movements, and media through an anthropological lens, with a particular interest in the mother-child dynamics of undocumented immigrants. In addition, he currently works as the Graduate Student Coordinator for the Migration Studies Initiative, a collaborative hub for Brown students, faculty, and staff researching migration, mobility, and displacement run in partnership with the Undocumented, First Generation College, and Low-income (U-Fli) Student Center and the Institute for Transformative Practice (ITP). 

In May of 2021, Argenis received the Mellon Award from PSTC — funds which he then used to conduct preliminary dissertation fieldwork with various immigrant rights groups in Phoenix, Arizona. 

“Through community-engaged research practices and visual ethnographic methods, we worked on “documenting undocumentedness” said Argenis. “We paid close attention to how immigrant narratives and community shape policy and justice.” 

“This collaborative and engaged research, along with my own experiences of being undocumented in the US, set the stage for the questions on topics of migration, kinship, and care, as well as the methods I hope to explore in the years to come,” he added.