Interview with Rossana Reguillo, conducted by Diana Taylor, founding director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. This interview is a part of a series curated by the Hemispheric Institute, articulated around the question 'What is Performance Studies?' The series aims to provide a multifaceted approach to the often difficult task of defining the coordinates of both a field of academic study as well as a lens through which to assess and document cultural practice and embodied behavior. The contingent definitions documented in this series are based on the groundbreaking experiences and the scholarly endeavors of renowned figures in contemporary performance studies and practice.

Rossana Reguillo Cruz is a research professor in the Department of Sociocultural Studies at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, ITESO in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she coordinates the program of research in Sociocultural Studies. Her current areas of study include youth and urban culture, mass media, and cultural aspects of the relationship between communication and human rights. She has been a visiting professor at several Latin American universities and in Europe and the United States. Her publications include La construcción simbólica de la ciudad: Sociedad, desastre, comunicación (Guadalajara: Universidad Iberoamericana/ITESO, 1996); Ciudadano N: Crónicas de la diversidad, with an introduction by Carlos Monsiváis and a preface by Jean Franco (Guadalajara: ITESO, 1999); Estrategias del desencanto: La emergencia de culturas juveniles en Latinoamérica (Buenos Aires: Ed. Norma, 2000); and Horizontes fragmentados: Comunicación, cultura, pospolítica. El (des)orden global y sus figuras (Guadalajara: ITESO, 2005).