About

Academic Committee

El programa de este conversatorio fue curado en un proceso de colaboración del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos (CLAS) de la Universidad de Stanford con profesoras del Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) y catedráticas de la sección de Etnicidad, Raza y Pueblos Indígenas (ERIP) de la Asociación de Estudios Latinoamericanos (LASA). Un intenso dialogo y aprendizaje mutuo nos permitió identificar temas prioritarios e invitaciones idóneas para crear un balance de experiencias regionales, enfoques diversos y perspectivas incluyentes. Nuestro comité cree firmemente en la posibilidad, más aún, el imperativo, de investigar los problemas que conciernen a los pueblos indígenas y afrodescendientes y otros grupos étnicos subalternos en las Américas con rigor científico propio de nuestras disciplinas académicas, pero con un compromiso ético de escuchar, aprender de otros saberes y actuar para avanzar causas que persiguen la defensa de la dignidad humana, la inclusión y la tolerancia. Pertenecen a este comité, en orden alfabético de apellido, Asad Asad, Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo, Mirna Carranza, Sara Clemente Vásquez, Emiliana Cruz, Alberto Diaz Cayeros, Rosalva Aida Hernández Castillo, Elaine Rocha, Elizabeth Sáenz Ackermann e Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj. 


The event program was curated through a collaborative process between professors and educators from CLAS, CIESAS, and ERIP. Intense dialogue and mutual learning allowed us to identify urgent themes and, subsequently, invite ideal speakers that will create a balance of regional experiences, diverse approaches, and inclusive perspectives. Our committee firmly believes in the possibility, and more so, the imperative, of studying the problems that concern indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other subaltern ethnic groups in the Americas with the scientific rigor typical of our academic disciplines but with an ethical commitment to listen to and learn from other knowledge and act to advance causes that pursue the defense of human dignity, inclusion, and tolerance. Those in the committee, in alphabetical order, are Asad L. Asad, Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo, Mirna Carranza, Sara Clemente Vásquez, Emiliana Cruz, Alberto Diaz Cayeros, Rosalva Aida Hernández Castillo, Elaine Rocha, Elizabeth Sáenz Ackermann and Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj. 


A curadoria do programa de nosso evento se originou de um processo colaborativo entre professores e educadores do CLAS, CIESAS e ERIP. Diálogos intensos e aprendizado mútuo entre as partes foram os principais fatores que nos permitiram identificar temas urgentes e relevantes e, a partir disso, convidar palestrantes adequados, que irão criar um equilíbrio entre experiências regionais, diferentes abordagens e perspectivas inclusivas. O nosso comitê acredita fortemente na possibilidade e, mais ainda, no imperativo, de estudar os problemas que envolvem povos indígenas, afro-descendentes e outros vários grupos étnicos na região das Américas com o típico rigor científico das nossas disciplinas acadêmicas. Contudo, acreditamos que isso só é possível com um comprometimento ético de escutar e aprender com os conhecimentos de outros e com ações que impulsionam causas focadas em defender a dignidade humana, inclusão e tolerância. Aqui estão, em ordem alfabética, o nome dos participantes do comitê: Asad L. Asad, Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo, Mirna Carranza, Sara Clemente Vásquez, Emiliana Cruz, Alberto Diaz Cayeros, Rosalva Aida Hernández Castillo, Elaine Rocha, Elizabeth Sáenz Ackermann e Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj.

Headshot of Asad. L. Asad.

Asad L. Asad, Associate Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

Asad L. Asad is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. His scholarly interests encompass social stratification; race, ethnicity, and immigration; surveillance and social control; and health. Asad's current research agenda considers how institutions—particularly U.S. immigration law and policy—reproduce multiple forms of inequality. Asad's current research centers on three primary lines of inquiry. His first research project, a book under contract with Princeton University Press, is based on a five-year study of Latino immigrant families in Dallas, Texas. 

Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo, Profesora Investigadora, CIESAS

Lina Rosa Berrio Palomo: es Dra. en antropología por la UAM-I y profesora investigadora del CIESAS,  Pacífico Sur en la línea de antropología médica.  Ha coordinado diversos proyectos sobre salud reproductiva, autora de varias publicaciones y acompañante de procesos organizativos de mujeres indígenas y parteras, por varios años. Sus temas de investigación son salud reproductiva, género, antropologías feministas, pueblos indígenas y afromexicanos. Actualmente trabaja en una investigación sobre salud reproductiva de mujeres afromexicanas e ikoots en la Costa Chica e Istmo de Oaxaca. Pertenece al Sistema Nacional de Investigadores nivel I.

Headshot of Mirna Carranza.

Mirna Carranza, Professor, McMaster University, Chair, ERIP

Dr. Mirna Carranza is a Family Therapist, community organizer, advocate, educator, and a Professor at the School of Social Work, McMaster University, ON, Canada. Her research program is both—theoretical and applied. It is grounded in theories of Coloniality of Power (CoP) (Quijano, 2007) and the Coloniality of Gender (CoG) (Lugones, 2009). Theories of CoP/CoG informs my approach to community engaged research and Indigenous research methodologies. Her inquiries focus on the ways that marginalization is “maintained” within the nation state along the intersections of borders and identities. 

Emiliana Cruz, Professor, CIESAS

Emiliana Cruz was born in Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca, Mexico, and is a native speaker of San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino. She is a linguistic anthropologist, earning her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011, and now is Professor-Researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Mexico City. Her research trajectories are diverse and interdisciplinary, emphasizing education, linguistic rights, territory, documentation and
linguistic revitalization.

Alberto Diaz-Cayeros

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, CLAS Director, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Alberto Diaz-Cayeros joined the FSI faculty in 2013. He is also the Director of the Center for Latin American Studies. From 2008 to 2013 he was Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego, and Director of the Center for US-Mexico Studies. He was an assistant professor of political science at Stanford from 2001-2008, before which he served as an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Diaz-Cayeros has also served as a researcher at Centro de Investigacion Para el Desarrollo, A.C. in Mexico from 1997-1999. He earned his Ph.D at Duke University in 1997. His work has focused on federalism, poverty and violence in Latin America, and Mexico in particular. 

Rosalva Aída Hernandez Castillo, Professor and Senior Researcher, Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS)

Born in Ensenada, Baja California, she earned her doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University in 1996. She is Professor and Senior Researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City.  She worked as a journalist since she was 18 years old in a Central American Press Agency. Since she was an undergraduate she has combined her academic work with activism for social Justice and media projects in radio, video and journalism. Her academic work has promoted indigenous and women rights in Latin America. She has done field work in indigenous communities in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Morelos, with Guatemalan refugees and with African immigrants in the South of Spain. She has published twenty two books and her academic work has been translated to English, French, Portuguese and Japanese. Her more recent book entitled Multiple InJusticies. Indigenous Women Law and Political Struggle in Latin America, was published by University of Arizona Pres.  She is recipient of the Martin Diskin Oxfam Award for her activist research and of the Simon Bolivar Chair (2013-2014) granted by Cambridge University for her academic work.

Headshot of Elaine Rocha.

Elaine Rocha, Senior Lecturer in History, UWI Cave Hill, Co-Chair, ERIP

Elaine Pereira Rocha nasceu em São Paulo, Brasil. É doutora em História Social pela Universidade de São Paulo. Professora Associada do Departamento de História e Filosofia da University of the West Indies (UWI), campus Cave Hill, Barbados. 
Suas pesquisas concentram-se na área de História das Mulheres, História dos Negros, Gênero e Raça na América Latina. Entre seus livros, estão: Canal de Desvio. Um Estudo da Experiência de Agricultores e Índios no Confronto com a Itaipu Binacional (2021); Milton Gonçalves: Memórias Históricas de um Ator Afro-Brasileiro (2019); Another Black Like Me: The Construction of Identities and Solidarity in the African Diaspora (org. com Nielson Bezerra 2015); Racism in Novels: a Comparative Study of Brazilian and South African Cultural History (2010).

Headshot of Elizabeth Saez-Ackermann.

Elizabeth Sáenz-Ackermann, Associate Director, CLAS

Elizabeth received her B.A. in Business Administration from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez and her M.A. in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University. Her research interest is on grassroots resistance movements in Latin America, particularly indigenous resistance and struggles. Elizabeth has been working since 1997 on education and health projects in indigenous communities of Chiapas, Mexico, and has participated in several forums and conferences advocating for the rights of indigenous peoples in Latin America.

Headshot of Alicia Velasquez.

Irma A. Velásquez Nimatuj, Social Anthropologist, Tinker Visiting Professor, Stanford University

Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj is a Maya-K’iche’ social anthropologist and journalist. In 2002 she played a key role in the historical process of setting legal precedent through a court case that made racial discrimination illegal in Guatemala. She is the author of “La justicia nunca estuvo de nuestro lado”: Peritaje Cultural sobre conflicto y violencia sexual en el caso Sepur Zarco, Guatemala (2019), “Lunas y Calendarios”. Poesía Guatemalteca. (2018) Pueblos Indígenas, Estado y lucha por Tierra en Guatemala (2008) and La pequeña burguesía indígena comercial de Guatemala: Desigualdades de clase, raza y género (2003). She was a Tinker Visiting Professor at Stanford CLAS from 2019 to 2021.