Will BooseCohort 2020

• MA, Latin American Studies, University of Florida, 2020
• BA, History, Florida State University, 2018

William (he/him/his) is a PhD candidate conducting research on the labor experiences and social worlds of mototaxistas (motorcycle taxi drivers) in Iquitos and Lima, Perú. He also thinks with mototaxistas about the Peruvian state’s varying governance approaches to mototaxi (motorcycle taxi) mobilities in both cities. William situates both of these related lines of inquiry within broader critical study of urban transformations in Perú, due to the ways that state and elite actors often position mototaxistas and their work as antithetical to projects of urban “modernization,” “development,” and “renewal.” He interrogates such discourses about mototaxistas—which tend to be classist and racializing—and the related forms of policing and displacement in both his ongoing dissertation work and his existing publications. You can check out early advances of William’s research in his 2022 photo essay “Los mototaxistas de Lima, Perú y la ‘ciudad moderna’ que pretende prohibirlos” published with the Revista Latinoamericana de Antropología del Trabajo, and his 2022 Op-Ed “Popular Transportation: Where Planning for Environmental Justice Hits the Pavement” co-published with Benjie de la Peña in Progressive City online magazine.

Before coming to Emory, William graduated from the Master's in Latin American Studies (MALAS) program at the University of Florida in May 2020. His capstone from that program—a multimodal project with mototaxistas in Iquitos—is available freely here. William incorporates photography and poetry into his research, and serves as Digital Director for the Iquitos-based poetry review Sentidos: Revista Amazónica.

Research interests: Urban anthropology and urban studies, motorcycle taxis, mobilities, anthropology of white supremacy, anthropology of infrastructure

Advisors:  Dr. Nugent