Aziria D. Rodríguez Arce, a lover of tacos, memes, and all things funny, earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR). She is also a community organizer and web developer. Aziria has worked in various non-profit organizations in Puerto Rico designing and developing participatory tech solutions to deal with government transparency, technology accessibility, capacity building, and economic development issues on the island.
All of Aziria's endeavors stem from a political and philosophical point of view based on advancing equality and inclusion. Therefore, it was only natural she directed her bachelor’s degree into the completion of a thesis that studied how power identity relations and symbolic violence are attuned with cultural and memetic content creation in the web, which she later funnily titled
Make Me a Sandwich.
At MIT Aziria worked with the Imagination, Computation, and Expression Laboratory. She is interested in understanding how collective narratives and identities transform content creation, production, and distribution in new media to promote social change. She wants to work on practical technological applications of collective and participatory content and media tool creation.
Aziria has Chandler Bing’s approach to handling uncomfortable situations and an obsession with meme sharing in Facebook.
Thesis:
Seizing the Memes of Production: Political Memes in Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Diaspora
