Keegan Boyar is a historian working on policing, citizenship, and informality in urban Latin America. His current book project draws on extensive archival research in court records to analyze the negotiation and contestation of police authority by residents of Mexico City from the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. His work traces the social and institutional history of policing with a focus on how different actors in urban spaces negotiated state power at the street level, and how these negotiations shaped inequalities in access to citizenship rights. He earned his Ph.D. in History at the University of Chicago (2022).
Research Interests: Urban Latin America, Mexican History, Social History, History of Policing, History of Law, History of Crime, Informality, Citizenship
2022-23 Classes: Global Society I in Autumn Quarter, Colonizations I in Winter Quarter.