Maya Camargo-Vemuri, Ph.D. Candidate

mcamarg2@jhu.edu

Graduate Student

Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

Country: United States (District of Columbia)

Social Media:

X: camargovemuri

About Me:

I am a scholar of political violence, and my research examines civilian victimization, mass violence, atrocity, and repression in modern states and societies. Currently, I am a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, where I am focusing on a the nature and dynamics of violence in genocide, under the guidance of Evgeny Finkel in the Conflict Management/European and Eurasian Studies departments. I am also a Graduate Research Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where I support Consuelo Amat's research on democracy and nonviolence in Latin America. In 2019, I was a Graduate Research Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where I researched the perpetration of sexual violence in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust and World War II. In 2020 and 2021 I taught classes on political violence, identity, and nationalism through Johns Hopkins University's intersession program. In 2021, I was an Adjunct Professor at the US Naval Academy's Department of Political Science. 

Research Interests

Genocide

Political Violence

Mass Atrocities

War Crimes

Sexual Violence

Gender And War

Power, Authority, Domination

Transitional Justice

Identity And Nationalism

Memory Politics

Countries of Interest

Former Soviet Union

Poland

Ukraine

Russia

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Serbia

Germany

Armenia

Colombia

Venezuela

My Research:

My dissertation focuses on violence during genocide, both theoretically and in practice. I use empirical evidence from World War II until today to document patterns in violence during genocide, identifying variation within and among cases, with the goal of determining causal factors. 
My research touches on three areas: mass violence; identity; and power. With regard to mass atrocity and violence, I focus on genocide and other forms of systematic civilian victimization. With regard to identity, I focus on national, ethnic, and racial identities, the formation of these identities, and the role that they play in social exclusion and conflict processes. I also consider how gender intersects with the aforementioned identities to affect roles that people fulfill in conflict, and the commission of certain types of victimization or violence in conflict. With regard to power, I focus on abuse of power by the state and its agents, inequality of power and privilege in society, and how systems of accountability can be corrupted by power.