Faculty

- Title
- Professor
- Division Social Sciences Division
- Department
- Latin American & Latino Studies
- Affiliations Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, Merrill College
- Phone 831-459-5897
- Fax 831-459-3125
- Website
- Office Location
- Merrill College Academic Building, 30
- Merrill Academic, room 30
- Office Hours Spring 2024 - Friday. 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM.
- Mail Stop Merrill/Crown Faculty Services
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High St.
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Globalization, Labor and Social Movements, Latin American and Latino Studies, Political Economy of Development
- Courses LALS 200-A Power and Society; LALS 245 Epistemologies of the South; LALS 258 Critical Cultural Political Economy; LALS 94-X Mother Nature, Capitalism, and Crises; LALS 158 Latin American Political Economy; LALS 126 Digit@l Americ@s/Digit@l Latin@S; LALS 194-X Socio-Environmental Conflicts in the Americas; LALS1 Intro to Latin American and Latino Studies
- Advisees, Grad Students, Researchers Boyeong Kim, Alejandra Watanabe Farro
Summary of Expertise
Socio-environmental conflicts; Economic elites, the state, and political domination; Political economy; Latin American Development; Social Movements; Labor flexibility; Post-neoliberalism.
Research Interests
I am currently working on two projects: The first is a book manuscript - Mythmaking Eco-Extractivism: Material-Semiotic Foundations of its Imaginaries and Political Technologies -- that applies a a systemic, strategic relational, critical cultural political economy approach to study how new capitalist hegemonic project centered on "green extractivism" arises and territorializes its operations. The second is a much delayed analysis of the forms of Latin American rentier capitalism and its state and non-state political forms.
Biography, Education and Training
Born in Santiago, Chile, I am a transnational Chilean.
PhD in Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
MA in Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
BA in Economics, American University (Washington D.C).
Selected Publications
Books
- The Left Hand of Capital. Neoliberalism and the Left in Chile (SUNY Press, 2021)
- Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development (University of Minnesota Press, 2008)
Peer Reviewed Articles
- "Economic Elites and New Strategies for Extractivism in Chile" European Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, No. 108 (July-December 2019), pp. 131-152
Book Chapters
- "Beyond corporate social responsibility: New territorial management strategies to defeat community resistance to extractivism," From Extractivism to Sustainability. Scenarios and Lessons from Latin America. Edited by H. Veltmeyer and A. Esquerra-Cañete. (Routledge, 2023).
Work in Progress
- "Mythmaking Eco-Extractivism: Materio-Semiotic Foundations of the Imaginaries and Political Technologies of "Decarbonization by Dispossession"
- “Neo-Ordoliberalism and the Left. Prospects for Strengthening Democracy and Overcoming the Contemporary Crises of Latin American Capitalism"
- “Chile and the Contemporary Power of Capital: Peripheral Predatory Rentier Capitalism and the Political Practices of Business Elites”
Selected Recordings
Documentary: "The Mapuche and the Myth of Chile" Al Jazeera, The Big Picture Series, Directed by Sanjiev Sohal
Teaching Interests
Latin American political economy, Critical cultural political economy, Contemporary socio-environmental conflicts.