Eleonora López

Eleonora López Contreras is a Mexican sociologist whose research focuses on migration, gender, racism, social suffering, interculturality, and the experiences of migrant children and second-generation migrants.

She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES) in Chile and an adjunct professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

López Contreras has participated in public discussions on migration, gender and academic inequality. In 2026, she was interviewed by Radio UAA's Altavoz program about the conditions affecting the careers of women social scientists in Mexico and Latin America.

She has also participated in academic forums addressing qualitative research and migration, including discussions on methodological approaches to migration policy and health among children of migrants.

Academic career

López Contreras studied sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she obtained her bachelor's degree in sociology. She subsequently moved to Chile, where she earned a master's degree in Social Sciences, specializing in Sociology of Modernization, from the University of Chile. She also completed a diploma in Sociodemography of Migration at the same university.

She later completed graduate studies in sociology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC), receiving a master's degree in sociology in 2022 and a PhD in sociology in 2024. Her doctoral research examined experiences of social suffering among children of Peruvian migrants in Santiago, Chile.

Earlier in her academic career, López Contreras held teaching appointments at UNAM's Faculty of Political and Social Sciences. In Chile, she participated in the University of Chile's Transdisciplinary Laboratory of Social Practices and Subjectivity and coordinated a research group on Haitian migration.

She has also taught migration law at the PUC. She later became a postdoctoral researcher at COES and an adjunct professor at the university.

Research

López Contreras's research has examined migration, border regions, gender inequalities, racism, interculturality, human rights and social suffering. Her work has particularly addressed the experiences of migrant women and children in Chile and other Latin American border contexts.

Her earlier research addressed migration in the Chile–Peru border region, including the mobility and everyday experiences of Peruvian migrant women. In 2019, together with Menara Lube Guizardi, Felipe Valdebenito Tamborino and Esteban Nazal Moreno, she published Des/venturas de la frontera: Una etnografía de las mujeres peruanas entre Chile y Perú, an ethnographic study of Peruvian women living, working and moving between Arica, Chile, and Tacna, Peru.

She has also co-authored research on the experiences of Bolivian women in the Andean tri-border region, examining the relationship between mobility, care work and violence, as well as studies of the interactions of Aymara Bolivian migrants with Chilean state institutions.

A later strand of her research has addressed gender inequality within academic careers in Latin America. She has participated in comparative research on the experiences of women in the social sciences, including quantitative studies of gender inequality in Mexican and Chilean academia.

Works

Books

• Guizardi, Menara Lube; Valdebenito Tamborino, Felipe; López Contreras, Eleonora; Nazal Moreno, Esteban (2019). Des/venturas de la frontera: Una etnografía de las mujeres peruanas entre Chile y Perú. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado. ISBN 978-956-357-200-1.

Papers

• López Contreras, Eleonora; Guizardi, Menara Lube; Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia (2021). "Las mujeres y la violencia. Un estado del arte sobre la frontera México-Estados Unidos". Tempo.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; López Contreras, Eleonora; Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia (2021). "Las violencias del cuidado. Las experiencias de mujeres paraguayas en la triple-frontera del Paraná". Confluenze. 13 (1): 500–541.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; López Contreras, Eleonora; Valdebenito, Felipe (2021). "Articulaciones transfronterizas de la violencia: relatos femeninos en la Triple-frontera del Paraná". Secuencia.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia; López Contreras, Eleonora; Stefoni, Carolina (2021).
• "Experiencias femeninas y violencia de género en la Triple Frontera del Paraná". Disparidades. Revista de Antropología. 76 (1): 1–16.
• Stefoni, Carolina; Guizardi, Menara Lube; López Contreras, Eleonora; Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia (2021). "Women, Borders, and Mobilities in Latin America". En: Mora, Claudia; Piper, Nicola (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Migration. Cham: Springer. pp. 521–538.
• López Contreras, Eleonora; Magalhães, Lina; Valdebenito, Felipe; Nazal, Esteban (2020). "Violencia de género en zonas fronterizas: debates teóricos y estudios de caso en contextos globales". Rumbos TS. (23): 119–157.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia; López Contreras, Eleonora (2020). "Género". En: Benedetti, Alejandro (ed.). Palabras clave para el estudio de las fronteras. Buenos Aires: Teseo. pp. 329–340.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia; López Contreras, Eleonora (2020). "Dialécticas de la oportunidad. Estrategias femeninas de movilidad, cuidado y protección social entre Paraguay y Brasil". Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales. 65 (240): 487–526.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; Valdebenito, Felipe; López Contreras, Eleonora; Nazal, Esteban (2019). Des/venturas de la frontera. Una etnografía de las mujeres peruanas entre Chile y Perú. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; López Contreras, Eleonora; Valdebenito, Felipe; Nazal, Esteban (2019). "Dialécticas de la maternidad. Aportaciones al estudio de las desigualdades de género en territorios fronterizos". Estudios Atacameños.
• Uribe, Pablo; Abarca-Brown, Gabriel; Radiszcz, Esteban; López Contreras, Eleonora (2019). "ADHD and Gender: subjective experiences of children in Chile". Saúde e Sociedade. 28: 75–91.
• Guizardi, Menara Lube; Nazal, Esteban; Valdebenito, Felipe; López Contreras, Eleonora (2018). "Configurations of Peruvian Female Migration in Iquique, Chile, in the 21st Century". Papeles de Población. (94).
• Arriagada, Camilo; López Contreras, Eleonora (eds.) (2018). Vivienda, trabajo y emprendimiento centrales. Aproximaciones a la realidad migrante en grandes urbes de Chile. Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile.
• López Contreras, Eleonora; Benavente, Luis; Chaná, Pedro; González, Claudia (2018). "Representaciones cuantitativas y cualitativas referentes a la inserción laboral y situación habitacional del colectivo inmigrante haitiano en Santiago de Chile: resultados de un estudio exploratorio-descriptivo". En: Arriagada, Camilo; López Contreras, Eleonora (coords.).
• Vivienda, trabajo y emprendimiento centrales. Aproximaciones a la realidad migrante en grandes urbes de Chile. Santiago de Chile: Universidad de Chile.
• López Contreras, Eleonora (2018). "Familias transnacionales. Un campo en construcción en Chile". En: Gonzálvez Torralbo, Herminia; Cienfuegos Illanes, Javiera (eds.). Academia y Crítica. Santiago de Chile: Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano.