Congratulations to Juan Arias (PS Ph.D. Candidate) who was awarded a 2026 GSAS Summer Fellowship!
Juan will be using the fellowship to travel to Bogotá, Colombia, to continue his research on the social practice of ninguneo, the action of turning somebody into a nobody. With the fellowship, he aims to explore the public and private records of the military and paramilitary groups who perpetrated the series of murders known as falsos positivos (false positives), in which soldiers killed civilians and disguised them as guerrillas in order to inflate body counts and receive promotions or other benefits. He is also looking for the original testimony of a soldier who claims to only feel like a somebody with her rifle.