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Visiting Scholars

Centre of Latin American Studies

 

Visiting Scholars 2022 - 23

Mariana di Bello (April - December 2023)

I am an Argentinian sociologist interested in the varied shapes and scopes that science-society interactions can adopt. My main career goal is helping to clarify and promote new ways that scientific knowledge can have a social and sustainable impact in peripheral countries. I  received my doctoral degree from Buenos Aires University in 2013 and since 2015 have worked as a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina. I have carried out research on several interrelated themes: scientific knowledge production processes oriented towards social problems; science and technology policies in Argentina; university-environment relationships; knowledge and expertise of civic society and their relations to the public agenda. Since 2008 I have worked as Teaching Assistant at the Sociology Department, National University of La Plata.

Álvaro A. Fernández Reyes (November 2022- September 2023)

I am passionate about Film Studies. In the past, I have worked on the History and Analysis of Mexican cinema and now my focus is the study of Latin American genres, specifically thrillers, the imaginaries, and the emotional culture. I received my Ph.D. in Human Sciences, from El Colegio de Michoacán. I work as Professor Researcher in University of Guadalajara, México. I belong to the National Research System (Level 2) and since 2010, I have been part of Selection committee of International Film Festival of Guadalajara. My key publications are Crimen y suspenso en el cine mexicano, 2007 (English title: Crime and Suspense in Mexican Cinema); and Santo el Enmascarado de Plata: mito y realidad de un héroe mexicano modero, 3a Ed., 2019 (English title: The Unmasked Silver Saint: Myth and reality of a Mexican and modern hero).

Rodrigo Barbosa Ribeiro (August 2022 - July 2023)

I graduated in Social Sciences from the State University “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” (1997). I completed a Masters in Social Sciences (Anthropology, 2001) and a PhD in Social Sciences (Anthropology, 2008) from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. Since 2014, I have been an Assistant Teacher at the Federal University of São Paulo. My research experience is focused on Anthropology, especially in indigenous ethnology, on the following subjects: racism, social sciences, social use of alcoholic beverages, violence, colonialism and indigenous peoples – Kaingang, Krahô, Maxakali.

Paula López Caballero (September 2022 - July 2023)

I am a historian and anthropologist working at the National University in Mexico. The transversal issue of my research consists of critically examining the Indigenous/non-Indigenous divide as it is understood and experienced in Mexican society. In my first book Indígenas de la nación (2017), I examine how local forms of identification are practiced and have changed across time (17th-21st Centuries) in Milpa Alta, a borough of Mexico City which was characterized as “purely indigenous” by anthropologists throughout the 20th century. I explored the alterity that is generally associated to indigenous identification in an edited book, Beyond Alterity (2018). In my present project I examine a large set of field notes, fieldnotes diaries, correspondence, photographs and other documentation produced by ethnographers (both Mexican and foreign, but mainly US-based) in the 1940s and 1950s, when these ethnographic methods began to be used in Mexico. Adopting an interdisciplinary methodology, in this project I engage with two fields of study: on one hand, a historical analysis of ethnographic fieldwork, its practices, materialities and power relations, and on the other, a political anthropology that examines scientific practices as privileged sites of statecraft. Ultimately, my hypothesis is that historical fieldwork can be productively examined as a laboratory from which to understand how Indigeneity and Indigenous subjectivities were shaped and institutionalized, filled with meanings and content that are still in use today.

Jaddiel Díaz Frene (September - November 2022)

Jaddiel Díaz Frene (Santa Clara, Cuba, 1983) is a tenured research professor at the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico. He holds a PhD in History from The Centre for Historical Studies by El Colegio de México. He did a post-doctorate at UNAM- Institute for Historical Research. His research interests include oral history of slave descendant families in Cuba, popular photography, connected history of the revolutions in Cuba and Mexico, oral poetry in the Atlantic world, and evolution of the social uses of sound media, such as radio and phonographs.

His first book, Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, adventures of a popular publisher (1880-1901) co-authored with Ángel Cedeño Vanegas, is the first biography of the most famous popular publisher in Mexico. His second book entitled, The guitar, the press, and the nation. A history of Cuba from popular memory (1892-1902), was also published by El Colegio de México. His third book, Printed wars, and street poets. An Atlantic history of string literature (Madrid, Havana, Mexico City, Santiago de Chile (1895-1898), is in process of published by Fondo de Cultura Económica. His fourth book Sound shows and moderns magicians. A history of talking machines (Mexico City, 1877-1903), was delivered to the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico as a result of the project Imperial phonographs and national voices. The history of a country in hard wax (1877-1910).

In addition, professor Díaz Frene is author of 7 book chapters and 15 articles published in different academic journals in Mexico, United States, Brazil, Colombia, and Spain. Some of these academic publications can be found in Mexican Studies (University of California, Berkeley), Historia Mexicana (El Colegio de México), Latin American Music Review (Universidad Texas, Austin), Latin American Popular Culture Review (University Texas, Austin), Anuario de Estudios Americanos (CSIC) and Historia Crítica (Universidad de Los Andes).

He has received several awards and distinctions for his work, among which are: Member of the National System of researchers at Mexico, since 2017; Registration in the Book of Honour of the University of Havana, 2007; Mention in Musicology by Casa Las Americas, Cuba, 2010; Prize of academic excellence by El Colegio de México, 2013; Prize for best doctoral thesis in History and Ethnohistory by INAH, Mexico 2017; Jury member of the Mexican Committee of Historical Sciences, 2017. He founded the Cuba-Mexico chair in 2019.  

Noelia Carrasco Henríquez (August - December 2022) 

Anthropologist, Catholic University of Temuco, Chile.  Doctor in social and cultural anthropology, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain. Associated Professor of History Department, University of Concepción, Chile. Her field of research is anthropological studies of development, applied economic anthropology, and political ecology. She has focused her ethnographic works on the territorial process associated with the relationship between companies and communities, local and global constructions of climate change, and biodiversity conservation.