Alejandro Campos Garcia

Biography

Doctorate of Philosophy (candidate) Sociology Department, York University, Toronto 2001 Master of Arts Sociology Department, Iberoamerican University (Mexico) 1997 Bachelor of Arts Sociology Department, University of Havana (Cuba) 1994 Diploma of Fine Arts, San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy (Cuba)

Research Interest

My current research is on the cutting-edge of the sociology of inequality and social justice. I am engaged in a political, historical and epistemological analysis of the definition of racism and racial discrimination as public problems. Concretely, my research interrogates three social justice models: 19th century humanitarianism, 20th century citizenship rights, and late 20th to early 21st century human rights. In general, I am interested in how all three models have worked as discursive foundations to make racism and racial discrimination intelligible as public problems and as objects of remedies. I have also had the opportunity to participate in and convene research and advocacy coalitions within the anti-racism community in Latin America. Over the past four years I have partnered with colleagues at the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University and the University of Cartagena de Indias in Colombia. Together we organized two international symposiums on the Afrodescendant movement in the Americashttp://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/afro-latin-american-research-institute/afrodescendientesafrodescendants; http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/afro-latin-american-research-institute/afrodescendientesafrodescendants). These gatherings have made a unique contribution by convening activists and movement leaders from across Latin America, scholars from prestigious North and South American institutions, representatives from influential funding agencies such as the Ford Foundation and the Inter American Bank of Development, and intergovernmental officials from the Organization of the American States and World Bank. These meetings have succeeded in sparking and sustaining an important conversation about the achievements, lessons and challenges associated with the implementation of the anti-racist human rights agenda in Latin America.