Daniel Zengotita

Ph.D. student at the Department of Political Science, University of Florida

Daniel Hiram Zengotita (they/any) is a second-year Political Theory Ph.D. student at the University of Florida in the Department of Political Science. Daniel’s research interrogates disparate imaginings of democratic citizenship in the U.S., Brazil, and the Caribbean. In it, they draw together intertwining-intersecting conversations on affect, judgment, and experience to show how historically-marginalized communities contest sexism, homo/transphobia, xenophobia, and racism. Currently, they are researching the relationship between code-switching, language-acquisition, and racialized competency-standards in primary education and their respective roles in the formation of political judgment. As part of their vision of building a more collaborative graduate program, Daniel, along with Sabrina Marasa, Kelly Richardson, and Glen Billesbach are working to make graduate student efforts visible while improving the quality of their development through workshops, peer-to-peer editing, and additional funding to defray the costs of conducting/presenting research. Thus, together we have founded the Race, Gender, and Ethnicity Working Group and the Seminar Series on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity. The aim of this endeavor is to promote our graduate students and their work, but also to show what kind of work our students are pioneering and how it can help draw more diverse voices into the discipline of political science.