Society for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology

Oral Presentation Session

From Activist Research to Citizen Anthropology: Reflection of Anthropological Engagements in Latin America

Presenter(s)

• RH

  Rosalva Hernandez-Castillo

  CIESAS

In this presentation, I want to reflect on the changing role of collaborative research in Latin America, discussing the concept of Antropología Ciudadana or Citizen Anthropology as developed by the Colombian anthropology, Miriam Jimeno. The concept refers to the roles that anthropologists are playing in Latin America, studying and doing activist research in ethnographic spaces that are their own social spheres and around social issues that concern them as citizen.
In the Latin American critical anthropological tradition "the field" has never been a "exotic country" where you go in and out, but that place we call "home," and our research themes are usually decided not only from the theoretical discussions in the classrooms, but from our urgent social need in daily life. I will like to reflect on this Latin American theoretical and political genealogy in dialogue with the new trends of Activist Anthropology in United States.