José O. Pérez is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in International Relations and Comparative Politics, with research interests in migration and refugee policies, security studies, global health politics, and political violence. His regional focus is on Latin America, in particular, Brazil.

Pérez’s dissertation, “Welcoming Migrants and Refugees: Governance, Labor, and Integration of Venezuelans in Brazil,” examines how Global South states respond to mass migration influxes that occur in short periods of time with innovative policy efforts. Specifically, it answers the questions: who governs migration at the grassroots level and how? And how are migrants and refugees integrated into local, small communities? Pérez answers these questions through extensive fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations conducted across multiple field sites in Brazil, with funding from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant. Pérez’s work reimagines migrant and refugee integration as a dense web of domestic and international actors, whereby the presence of international actors functions, ironically enough, to strengthen the sovereignty of the host state. His dissertation findings also emphasize the often-overlooked role of municipal bureaucrats in integrating vulnerable migrant and refugee groups, and how their efforts can reduce anti-immigrant social backlash, while improving local public services. In particular, Pérez presents the unperceived and difficult to quantify ways that local Brazilian bureaucrats build informal networks of support, learn new skills, and locate new resources to assist migrants and refugees. 

Pérez holds an M.A. in International Strategic Studies from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, 2019) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He also holds a B.A. in Political Science and Latin American Studies from the University of Florida (UF, 2014), and was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Fellow in Brazil (2015, 2016). Pérez has also been selected as a Diversity Fellow by the American Political Science Association (2021) and awarded a graduate student research grant by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. His research publications include articles in Security Studies, Security Dialogue, International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Latin American Perspectives.