About

Daisy Donaji Matias is a writer, teacher, and PhD Candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. 

Daisy’s dissertation project, Minor Meditations: Techniques for Other Ways of Being, interweaves literature from minoritarian performance theory, psychological anthropology, and Indigenous studies to examine Latin American artists and healers who deploy Indigenous knowledges and techniques of attention to transform subjectivity and corporeality. The techniques of attention she considers range from psychedelic ritual to filmic absorption to sound healing, all of which function as improvisational strategies for undoing violence inflicted upon the Indigenous and Indigenous descended transnational body. Her case studies include the Mazatec Sabía, María Sabina; the Mixtec film Collective, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos; and transdisciplinary artist and healer, Guadalupe Maravilla. 

Daisy lives on the far north side of Chicago with her partner and her bunny, Mango Moon.