Dr. Sandra Gruner-Domić

Professional Background

Dr. Sandra Gruner-Domić earned a PhD in anthropology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her doctoral research focused on Latin American migration to Europe. Her previous research and teaching discussed themes of identity, inclusion and exclusion, othering, transnational forms of cultural practice, diasporic relations, and cosmopolitan forms of sociability. Dr. Gruner-Domić’s scholarly expertise include global migration, representation, and forms of violence.

Dr. Gruner-Domić worked as a consultant at the USC Shoah Foundation for its Guatemala collection, for which she examined narratives of Guatemalan genocide survivors. She also received the 2021 Bernard and Mollie Steuer / JDC Archive Fellowship and previously held a research and teaching Fulbright award to investigate the Bolivian government’s migrations policies during the Holocaust. Her objective was to look at both the perception and the effects of Jewish migration in a postcolonial country. Her project aimed to deepen the understanding of race relations in a multicultural society strongly divided by racial hierarchies, and the responses to the influx of refugees. Dr. Gruner-Domić has taught at the Department of European Ethnology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Departments of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California, and the Department of International Studies at California State University, Long Beach.

Fellowship Research

Dr. Sandra Gruner-Domić was awarded a Manya Friedman Memorial Fellowship to expand her previous archival research on the Bolivian experience. While in residence at the Museum, she plans to extensively utilize the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive and the David Glick collection, as well as the extensive library collections.

Residency Period: April 1–July 31, 2023