Dr Alejandro M. Flores-Aguilar

Postdoctoral researcher at the "Komon Sajbichil"/Cold War Maya-Ixil Cartographies Project

Biography

Background

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (2023-2025) and a professor at Ixil University. I obtained my doctorate in Social Anthropology with a specialization in Visual Ethnography from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017 and hold a degree in Sociology from the Free University of Berlin. From 2022 to 2023, I served as the Director of the Graduate Department of Humanities at Rafael Landívar University. Prior to that, from 2020 to 2021, I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Fejos Program in Ethnographic Film at the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Between 2008 and 2012, I coordinated the Social Imaginaries Team at the Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala (AVANCSO), and from 2018 to 2019, I worked as a researcher at the Vice-Rectorate of Research and Projection at Rafael Landívar University. I coordinated a research team on the intersection of social imaginaries, sexuality and racism in Guatemala. Since 2012, with the beginning of my PhD, my research has primarily focused on ethnographic studies of Cold-War in the Maya-Ixil territory. This research gradually incorporated visual elements from 2015 to 2016 when I collaborated with Ixil University on the production of a historical photographic series called "Historia Ixil del Siglo XX." This led to a project starting in 2016, where I worked with Ixil students to collect testimonies from former indigenous resistance member. Between 2020 and 2021, I expanded this research by documenting testimonies of Maya-Ixil former resistance members through the video ethnography project "Mirada Alzada del Tiempo Ixil, por una Historia Menor de la Guerra." I am currently in the process of editing an ethnographic film and writing a book that elaborates on this work with the collected testimonies. Since May or 2023, I am researcher in the Komon Sajbichil project, a collaboration among the University of Edinburgh, Ixil University, and the Indigenous Ancestral Authorities of Nebaj. This initiative, funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by Principal Investigator Dr. Julie Gibbings, aims to understand the multiplicity of cartographic production during the history of the Ixil territory while actively working towards the decolonization of representations of space and place in collaboration with Ixil students and members of the Ancestral Authorities.  My teaching experience is extensive, encompassing courses on biopolitics, sovereign power, visual methods, contemporary philosophy, and visual anthropology taught at various institutions, including the University of Arizona, Rafael Landívar University, FLACSO, and USAC. At Ixil University, I teach courses on plural epistemologies, twentieth-century history, visual methods, oral history, memory, and the history of racism in discourses of progress and development. In addition to my academic commitments, I regularly collaborate with visual artists and photographers, engaging in cultural production that deeply informs my research and teaching. My most recent book, produced in the context of the pandemic, is a co-edited volume with Anamaría Cofiño titled "Incertidumbres y Horizontes: Ensayos sobre COVID-19 en Guatemala" (Ediciones del Pensativo, 2023)

CV

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Research summary

Visual Anthropolgy

Cold War

Anthropology of resistance

Latin America

Maya-Ixil

Current research interests

2023 Project: Komon Sajbichil: indigenous cartographies in the Cold War) in collaboration with Dr. Julie Gibbings. 2020 Raised Gaze in Ixil Time: Towards a Minor History of War (ongoing visual anthropological research on politicization by the Maya-Ixil People.)

Past research interests

2018-2019 Reason of State, state-violence and infrastructure in the post-counterinsurgency, Institute for Research on the State, Landivar University. 2014-2016 Dissertation Research: They didn’t win the war: Aesthetics and infrastructure in post-counterinsurgency Guatemala, Anthropology Department, University of Texas at Austin. 2009-2012 Sex/Race Apparatus, Social Imaginaries Area, Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala. (Project director.) 2007-2009 Racism and Ideology in Guatemala, Social Imaginaries Team, Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala. 2006 Diplom Soziologe research: Construction of others: Towards a practical interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas (Konstruktionen des Anderen: Zu einer praktischen Intepretation Emmanuel Lévinas.). 2000-2001 Social Imaginaries in Guatemala, Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala. 1999 Non-Formal Education and National Identity, National Identity Area, Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala. 1996-1998 National Identity Modeling in Youngsters Through Formal Education in Guatemala, National Identity Area, Association for the Advancement of Social Sciences in Guatemala.

Books

 

2023                Incertidumbres y Horizontes: Ensayos sobre COVID-19 en Guatemala. Ediciones del Pensativo. Co-edited with Ana María Cofiño.

2020                Políticas Encandenantes: Sobre Cuerpos y Violencias en Centro América. CLACSO. Co-edited with Clara Arenas, Paula Fernández, Juan Pablo Gómez & Laura Sala

2014                Seguridad y Racismo: Pensamiento Crítico Centroamericano. Managua: AVANCSO, CLACSO, INHCA. Co-edited with Clara Arenas and Juan Pablo Gómez.

2014                Sexo & Raza: Analíticas de La Blancura, el Deseo y la Sexualidad Guatemala: AVANCSO (coord.)  

 

Articles & papers

 

2022                El retorno del espectro: pensar fotográfico en el espacio de muerte. In: M. Mazariegos (coord), Crítica de la razón de Estado. URL/VRIP. https://sie.url.edu.gt/b7-enlace_6/

Photography in the Space of Death. With Campbell, Craig, and Douglas, Lee. Doi: 10.14288/908X-W279. Retrieved from: https://www.icerpress.ca/multimodal/writing-with-light

2021                Entre Ilom y el bicentenario. Revista Eutopía. Número especial del Bicentenario. Guatemala.

2020                Arquitecturas de abyección e inmunización en los nuevos ritmos de la vida cotidiana. Journal of Latin American Geography. 19(3) 314-322 doi: 10.1353/lag.0.0142

2020                Aseguramiento de lo sensible. Lenguaje, infraestructura y estética en la post-contrainsurgencia. En: “Políticas Encandenantes: Sobre Cuerpos y Violencias en Centro América”. CLACSO, Argentina.

2019                30 años después de los acuerdos de Esquipulas, Comentario al texto de Guatemala in Democracia y Derechos Humanos: Honduras, Guatemala, el Salvador y Nicaragua. Fundación Panamericana para el Desarrollo, San Salvador pp.155-167. Retrieved from:  https://panopticonica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/30-anos-despues-de-los-Acuerdos-de-Esquipulas-1.pdf

2018                Violencia originaria, Aporía y la apropiación del “No”: Francisco de Vitoria. Revista Eutopía, (5), 173–191.

2018                Defender la Sociedad. Textos para el Análisis y la Reflexión Política, (3), 8-24

2017                Doce viñetas sobre la seguridad: lugar y espacio de las élites capitalinas. Guatemala, C.A. In: Revista de Plaza Pública: Seguridad y Violencia, (4), 40-53.

2017                They didn’t win the war: Aesthetics and infrastructure in post- counterinsurgency Guatemala. Austin, TX. University of Texas at Austin.

2016                Los retratos de estilo documental de Daniel Chauche: Hacia una fotografía no-representacional. Revista de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, (33), 5-13.

2016                Lo político: más allá de la construcción (inter)mediática de la política. Cifras y Voces, Perspectivas de Cambio en la Sociedad Guatemalteca. Pgs. 109-114.

2016                Lo popular. Una alternativa al elitismo y al populismo. In Plaza Pública. Retrieved from: https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/lo-popular-una-alternativa-al-elitismo-y-al-populismo.

2016                Primavera 2015 y la crisis de la izquierda guatemalteca. De la democrática despolitización de las protestas a una política del deseo. En: Revista del Istmo #31 (Guatemala, 2015: (Pre)sintiendo el futuro). Retrieved from: http://istmo.denison.edu/n31/articulos/03_flores_alejandro_form.pdf

2016                Notas mínimas sobre la primavera 2015: Liberalismo político, democracia y despolitización. Estudios Digital Numero Especial. Retrieved from: http://sitios.usac.edu.gt/revistahistoria/index.php?id=149

2015                Contrainsurgencia, lo humano y el aseguramiento de lo sensible: lenguaje, infraestructura y estética. In: Cultura de Guatemala, Editorial Cara Parens Vol. I. (pp. 171-194).

2014                Ontología de la Raza y Racismo S&M. Guatemala: AVANCSO

2014                Tres semióticas de subjetivación:  racismo deseante en Guatemala. In: Seguridad y Racismo: Pensamiento critic Centroamericano. Nicaragua: AVANCSO, CLACSO, INHCA.

2011               Autoridad, violencia y descolonizacion del pensamiento. Apuntes desde la sociologia y la filosofia politica, URL/UNESCO, Guatemala.

2010                Nacionalismo o descolonizacion de la imaginacion academica Introduccion a una genealogia del poder del enunciado en Guatemala. Boletin del AFEHC.

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