Visiting Scholars 2024-5

Visiting Scholars 2024-5

Fernando Calderón (May 2025)

Director of Research at the National University of San Martin in Buenos Aires, Professor in the PhD in Social Sciences Program and in the Master Program in Human Development Public Policies at Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) Argentina. He taught at several universities in the United States of America (Austin, Chicago, Berkeley, and Cornell), at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) in Barcelona (Spain), Le centre d etudes Global at the La Maison de Sciences de le Homme, in Paris, France, the Mayor University of San Andrés (UMSA) in La Paz (Bolivia) and in various universities in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Chile. He was Executive Secretary of Latin American Social Science Council (CLACSO), Social Policy Advisor at Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Special Advisor on Human Development and Governance in United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Coordinator and Senior Advisor in over 15 Human Development Reports in several countries of Latin America, Europe and Africa, and at sub-regional and global levels. In 2000 and 2002, the Human Development Report in Bolivia, which coordinated, was awarded worldwide. ERUDITE Scholar in Residence from The Kerala State in Education Council. India 2019. Simon Bolivar Chair, University of Cambridge, 2017-2018. Doctorado Honoris Causa UNSAM, Argentina, 2018. Profesor Honorario Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Cochabamba, Bolivia, 1992. Associated with several activities with UNESCO since 1972, with UNICEF, UNRISD, UNU, ONU and several international organisations. Author of 24 books on democracy, culture and development, and 35 Readings in these topics. His book, with Manuel Castells, The New Latin America, has three editions in different languages: FCE, Mexico, 1919 (Spanish), ZAHAR, Brasil, 2020 (Portuguese), and Polity Press, Cambridge UK/Polity Press, Medford, (English). 

Fernando will spend two weeks as a visiting professor at the Centre of Latin American Studies in May 2025. During part of this time he will focus on the writing of his new book and will also give a series of three workshops open to the whole community: Latinoamérica en la policrisis global. 

Fraya Frehse (February 2025)

Fraya Frehse is an Associate Professor of Sociology (of the City, of Space and Everyday Life) at the University of São Paulo (USP), a recent British Academy Visiting Fellow at CLAS (2023) and an Alumna of the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Foundation. This time, Fraya staying at CLAS in the framework of a three-month AvH research stay at the Collaborative Research Centre 'Re-Figuration of Spaces' of Technische Universität Berlin. At USP, she coordinates the Center for Studies and Research on the Sociology of Space and Time (NEPSESTE) and the Laboratory of Social Research (LAPS) of the USP Department of Sociology. She is also a member of the ‘Global Cities’ Program of the USP Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA). In her seminar at CLAS, Fraya addresses outcomes of her forthcoming co-edited book Spatial Methods in Transdisciplinarity for Urban Sustainability: A Transformative Methodological Spectrum (Springer Nature, due April 2025).  Fraya Frehse is a visiting scholar at the Centre of Latin American Studies in February 2025 and will give the seminar: Interactional contributions of homeless people to urban sustainability in Latin America.

Fernando Morais da Costa (January 2025 - March 2025)

Fernando Morais da Costa is a full professor in the Department of Cinema and Video and at PPGCine, the Postgraduate Program in Cinema and Audiovisual Studies at Universidade Federal Fluminense. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies from the same institution. He also completed a postdoctoral degree at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. He is the author of O som no cinema brasileiro (Sound in Brazilian Cinema, Rio de Janeiro: 7 letras, 2008). He was a member of the board of Socine, the Brazilian Society for Cinema and Audiovisual Studies, from 2017 to 2019.

This project proposes a conference presentation about the theme of this research, Silences and voices in contemporary Brazilian and British cinema. Writing the subsequent article is also a goal, as well as send it to publication in journals related to the theme of the research, such as Music, Sound and The Moving Image, by Liverpool University Press and Screen Magazine, by the University of Glasgow. Attending any research seminars that eventually might take place during the visiting time is also an intention, as well as visiting British film archives, as The British Film Institute. Establishing possible connections with other universities with which this researcher already has contact is also possible, such as the University of Exeter and the University of Liverpool. Besides that, creating a study routine at the University Library and Centre Library is a central purpose for this research.

Gabriela de Carvalho (January 2025 - April 2025)

Gabriela de Carvalho is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and an Affiliated Research Fellow in the Global Dynamics of Social Policy Collaborative Research Centre at the Universität Bremen (Germany). She holds a doctoral degree in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Bremen. Her research interests focus on comparative social policies, with a particular emphasis on countries of the Global South and care policies, as well as research methods. Her work has been published in Global Social Policy, Policy Studies, and Contemporary Politics, among others.

During her time at CLAS, de Carvalho plans to begin the conceptual framework development for the project The Dynamics of Healthcare Systems Segmentation: The Institutional Stratification of Social Groups in South America (HESS), a project for which she has received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship from the European Commission. The HESS project examines the historical emergence and development of healthcare system segmentation, where access to and quality of care are determined by social group affiliation—a particularly prevalent issue in South America. In this region, segmentation leads to fragmented healthcare provision, with tax-based public systems serving the poor, social insurance programmes covering formal workers, and private schemes catering to the affluent. By creating a novel index to measure healthcare system segmentation and compiling the first historical dataset on the phenomenon, this research aims to map the stratification of social policies and explore its political, economic, and social drivers in 12 South American countries.