George Ygarza is a UCSB Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Global Studies. Being a multi-ethnic, first-gen, son of Peruvian immigrants to the US, George has embodied the global in many ways. Throughout his life, George has traversed several scales of politics in his work as an activist and growing scholar. George has taken part in or organized several social movements since high school around the New York metro area, connecting with scholars and activists across the globe. From OCCUPY to #BlackLivesMatter and immigrant rights, his work on the ground has influenced his global perspective and vice versa. George’s dissertation research investigates contemporary anti-mining resistance in Espinar, Peru, within the ontological turn in the social sciences, most recently taken up by decolonial studies by recognizing that difference extends far beyond superficial elements of culture towards new ways of being. George's broader research is situated at the confluence of critical frameworks and hemispheric hermeneutics in Black and Native studies, which explore the complexities and nuances of Indigeneity and blackness to achieve a much-needed dialogue across historically interrelated ontologies, seeking to tether the autonomous currents present across the hemisphere. George is interested in questions of epistemic formations, the imposition of state processes, and critical praxis, particularly as these are focused around the problematic of colonization and state violence.