Rebecca
Torres
Rebecca Maria Torres is Professor in the Department of Geography & the Environment and C. B. Smith, Sr. Centennial Chair in United States-Mexico Relations #4 at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines migration, forced displacement, and asylum-seeking among Mexican children, youth, and families, with a focus on feminist political geography, neoliberal extractivism, violence, and transnational governance across Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
She is Principal Investigator of the NSF Geography & Spatial Sciences project “Geographies of Displacement: Mexican Migrant/Refugee Children and Youth in the Mexico-United States Borderlands” (Award #1951772, 2020–2025), co-led with Valentina Glockner-Fagetti and a binational research team. She also serves as Co-Principal Investigator (with Eugenio Arima, PI, and Kenneth Young, Co-PI) on the NSF Human-Environment & Geographical Sciences project “The Avocado Connection to Ecosystem Degradation, Violence, and Migration” (Award #2242268, 2023–2026), conducted in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Morelia and its Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES).
| Migration Reasearch Hub ID: 6315 | |
| ORCID | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8634-6894 |
| ResearchGate | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rebecca-Torres-3?ev=hdr_xprf |
Expertise
Migration processes
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Migration drivers
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Migration forms
Migration consequences (for migrants, sending and receiving countries)
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Socio-cultural consequences
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Socio-economic consequences
Migration governance
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Governance actors
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Immigrant policy and law
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Migration policy and law
Cross-cutting topics in migration research
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Migration research and theory
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Transversal themes
Disciplines
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Disciplines
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Subject Areas
Methods
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Qualitative research
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Types of study
Geographies
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Scope
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UN Countries
Roles
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University of Texas at Austin
University, Austin, United States
Professor
Research
Mapping the Violence Reputation of Organized Crime Groups
| Authors | Eugenio Arima, Antonio González-Rodríguez, Felipe García-Oliva, ... |
| Year | 2025 |
| Journal Name | Journal of Illicit Economies and Development |
CONDUCTING RESEARCH WITH MIGRANT CHILDREN IMPACTED BY HUMANITARIAN VIOLENCE AT THE U.S.–MEXICO BORDER
| Authors | Valentina Glockner-Fagetti, Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Rebecca Maria Torres |
| Year | 2024 |
| Journal Name | Geographical Review |
The "body-territories" of forced displacement in Mexico: a feminist analysis of the contemporary geographies of terror
| Authors | Emanuela Borzacchiello, Valentina Glockner Fagetti, Rebecca Maria Torres |
| Year | 2022 |
| Journal Name | ANDAMIOS | Taxonomy | View Taxonomy Associations |
Lockdown and the list: Mexican refugees, asylum denial, and the feminist geopolitics of esperar (waiting/hoping)
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres, Valentina Glockner, Nohora Niño-Vega, ... |
| Year | 2022 |
| Journal Name | Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space |
“Asylum is Not for Mexicans”: Unaccompanied Youth and Racio-Governance at the US Border
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres, Sarah Blue, Caroline Faria, ... |
| Year | 2022 |
| Journal Name | Geopolitics |
Bordering through care and control: Policing and sheltering Central American migrant youth in Mexico
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres, Kate Swanson, Caroline Faria, ... |
| Year | 2022 |
| Journal Name | Political Geography |
Good boys, gang members, asylum gained and lost: The devastating reflections of a bureaucrat-ethnographer
| Authors | Olimpia M. Valdivia Ramirez, Caroline Faria, Rebecca Maria Torres |
| Year | 2021 |
| Citations (WoS) | 8 |
The uneven geography of asylum and humanitarian relief: place-based precarity for Central American migrant youth in the United States judicial system
| Authors | Sarah A. Blue, Alisa Hartsell, Rebecca Torres, ... |
| Year | 2020 |
| Journal Name | Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies |
Embodied Exhibits: Toward a Feminist Geographic Courtroom Ethnography
| Authors | Caroline Faria, Sarah Klosterkamp, Rebecca Maria Torres, ... |
| Year | 2019 |
| Journal Name | Annals of the American Association of Geographers |
A crisis of rights and responsibility: feminist geopolitical perspectives on Latin American refugees and migrants
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres |
| Year | 2018 |
| Journal Name | Gender, Place & Culture |
Re-conceptualising agency in migrant children from Central America and Mexico
| Authors | Amy Thompson, Rebecca Maria Torres, Kate Swanson, ... |
| Year | 2017 |
| Journal Name | Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies |
| Citations (WoS) | 4 |
Migration and Development? The Gendered Costs of Migration on Mexico's Rural “Left Behind”
| Authors | Rebecca M. Torres, Lindsey Carte |
| Year | 2016 |
| Journal Name | Geographical Review |
Child Migration and Transnationalized Violence in Central and North America
| Authors | Kate Swanson, Rebecca Maria Torres |
| Year | 2016 |
| Journal Name | Journal of Latin American Geography |
Role playing: a feminist-geopolitical analysis of the everyday workings of the Mexican state
| Authors | Lindsey Carte, Rebecca M. Torres |
| Year | 2013 |
| Journal Name | Gender, Place & Culture |
Community participatory appraisal in migration research: connecting neoliberalism, rural restructuring and mobility
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres, Lindsey Carte |
| Year | 2013 |
| Journal Name | Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers |
Undocumented Students’ Narratives of Liminal Citizenship: High Aspirations, Exclusion, and “In-Between” Identities
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres, Melissa Wicks-Asbun |
| Year | 2013 |
| Journal Name | The Professional Geographer |
| Citations (WoS) | 17 |
Building Austin, building justice: Immigrant construction workers, precarious labor regimes and social citizenship
| Authors | Rebecca Torres, Lauren Apgar, Charles R. Hale, ... |
| Year | 2013 |
| Journal Name | Geoforum |
| Citations (WoS) | 18 |
Neoliberalization, Transnational Migration, and the Varied Landscape of Economic Subjectivity in the Totonacapan Region of Veracruz
| Authors | Jeff Popke, Rebecca Maria Torres |
| Year | 2013 |
| Journal Name | Annals of the Association of American Geographers |
Experiencing agricultural failure: Internal migration, tourism and local perceptions of regional change in the Yucatan
| Authors | Lindsey Carte, Mason McWatters, Erin Daley, ... |
| Year | 2010 |
| Journal Name | Geoforum |
| Citations (WoS) | 19 |
Gringolandia: The Construction of a New Tourist Space in Mexico
| Authors | Rebecca Maria Torres, Janet D. Momsen |
| Year | 2005 |
| Journal Name | Annals of the Association of American Geographers |
Suggested Research
Cancun’s tourism development from a Fordist spectrum of analysis
| Authors | Rebecca Torres |
| Year | 2002 |
| Journal Name | Tourist Studies |
Toward a better understanding of tourism and agriculture linkages in the Yucatan: Tourist food consumption and preferences
| Authors | Rebecca Torres |
| Year | 2002 |
| Journal Name | Tourism Geographies |
Montezuma’s Revenge
| Authors | Rebecca Torres, Paul Skillicorn |
| Year | 2004 |
| Journal Name | Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly |
Planned Tourism Development in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Engine for Regional Development or Prescription for Inequitable Growth?
| Authors | Rebecca Torres, Janet Momsen |
| Year | 2005 |
| Journal Name | Current Issues in Tourism |
Challenges and potential for linking tourism and agriculture to achieve pro-poor tourism objectives
| Authors | Rebecca Torres, Janet Henshall Momsen |
| Year | 2004 |
| Journal Name | Progress in Development Studies |