Karma Chávez is a rhetorical critic who utilizes textual and field-based methods and studies the rhetorical practices of people marginalized within existing power structures. She has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities, as well as co-founding the Queer Migration Research Network. She works with social justice organizations and her scholarship is informed by queer of color theory, women of color feminism, poststructuralism, and cultural studies.
Chávez is currently an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latino Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She previously worked at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the Department of Communication Arts. For four years in Madison, she hosted a radio show on 89.9 FM WORT called “A Public Affair.”