On October 29, 2025, at the Poblenou Campus of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, José Luis Sánchez Ramírez defended his doctoral thesis in person, in Spanish, under the supervision of Dr. Carles Feixa i Pàmpols and Dr. Manuel Garín Boronat. The thesis, titled Political Silences as Sonic Events in Social Protest: Black Lives Matter Movement (USA) and Ayotzinapa Movement (Mexico), examines the function of silence within contemporary social movements from a multidisciplinary perspective.

José Luis Sánchez Ramírez is an active member of the JOVIS research group. His work combines qualitative methods such as militant ethnography, acoustic ecology analysis, and audiovisual aesthetics to decode how silences function as tactics and events that challenge established order and reshape public spaces in protest contexts.

Findings reveal that political silence is much more than the absence of sound; it acts as a disruptive force creating space for reflection, collective empathy, and a new political temporality. The thesis offers an expanded conceptualization of silences as repertoires of action that, through tonic expression and nonverbalization, build political culture via sonic and visual soundscapes in social mobilizations.

The examining committee, chaired by Dr. Maricela Portillo Sánchez (Universidad Iberoamericana), along with Dr. Jordi Mir Garcia (secretary, UPF) and Dr. Rossana Reguillo Cruz (member, ITESO), commended the methodological rigor and conceptual depth of the thesis. They especially highlighted its original contribution at the intersection of sound, body, and memory in the political context, as well as the candidate’s ability to pose new questions and perspectives from a critical, interdisciplinary viewpoint.

This study constitutes a significant contribution to communication, anthropology, and cultural studies, inviting a reevaluation of silences not as absences but as powerful strategies of resistance and social transformation.