Santi Roman

Santi’s work centers on the formation of subaltern sites of political, economic, and social sovereignty, particularly in post-1994 South Africa. By mapping the geographies of struggle, refusal, and healing in late-stage racial capitalism, she seeks to illuminate and advance collective efforts toward self-determination. These subjects emerged from Santi’s reckoning with the persistent haunting of South African apartheid, environmental cataclysm, and her experience as a queer and trans person.

Prior to Stanford, she earned her BA in Environmental Studies at Oberlin College where she conducted collaborative community participatory field work in Africatown, Alabama, a distinctly West African and Black Town founded by the survivors of the last documented slave ship. Over the course of three years, she co-led the collection of 35+ oral history interviews with community elders, completed environmental justice research, and toiled with the creation of fugitive sanctuaries in her thesis.