SOPHIA ENRIQUEZ

ABOUT

Sophia M. Enríquez (she/her/ella)is an ethnomusicologist, folklorist, and community-engaged scholar whose work explores Latino musical life, migration, and regional culture across Appalachia and the U.S. South. She is Assistant Professor of Music and Latino/a Studies in the Global South at Duke University. She earned her PhD in ethnomusicology from The Ohio State University in 2021 along with graduate certificates in Folklore and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

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Enríquez’s research and teaching move across ethnomusicology, folklore studies, Latino studies, Appalachian and southern studies, and public humanities, reflecting her commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship grounded in collaborative and community-centered methodologies. Her essays examining how music shapes experiences of migration, belonging, memory, and regional identity have been published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music, Journal of the Society for American Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, and are forthcoming in American Music, Southern Cultures, and the Journal of Latino and Latin American Studies. She has also contributed book chapters to several collaborative edited volumes including Whose Country Music?: Genre, Identity, and Belonging in Twenty-First-Century Country Music Culture , Teaching Collaborative Ethnography in Place: Instances and Experiences from The Ohio Field School Program, and forthcoming volumes The Cambridge Companion to Dolly Parton 

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Her first book project, Resonant Souths: Latino Musical Lives in Appalachia and the Southern U.S., is the first full-length study of Latino creative practices in Appalachia and the broader U.S. South and is forthcoming with the University of North Carolina Press.. The project traces how Latino communities have shaped the cultural life of these regions over the past century, challenging narratives that imagine Appalachia and the South as culturally homogenous spaces.

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Community collaboration and cultural organizing are central to Enríquez’s work. She is co-founder of Son de Carolina, a Durham-based collective dedicated to the study and practice of traditional Mexican son jarocho and serves as co-director of the annual Fandango de Durham. Through these initiatives, she helps create spaces for intergenerational learning, participatory music-making, and cultural exchange across Latino and Southern communities. She has also consulted on regional and national community folklife initiative including the Oral Narratives of Latinos in Ohio initiative, Central Appalachian Folk and Traditional Arts survey project, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. 

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At Duke, Enríquez emphasizes collaborative, community-centered teaching practices that connect students to local histories, oral traditions, performance, and public-facing research. She has been recognized as being among the top 5% of professors in Trinity College at Duke University for her courses in Music and Latino/a Studies in the Global South. Along with professor Luis Navarro, Enríquez leads a Bass Connections student research team that integrates students and community learning through the planning of the Fandango de Durham and a community-driven oral history project in collaboration with Iximché Media. 

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In addition to her academic work, Enríquez is an active practitioner of Mexican and Appalachian folk musics. She has performed with groups including the Good Time Girls, The Lua Project, Larry & Joe, and continues to collaborate with musicians and cultural workers across Appalachia, the U.S. South, and Mexico. 

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Enríquez currently serves as the President of the Appalachian Studies Association and the Vice President of the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music Board of Directors.