Jorge Alonso or "Doc Alonso" - as he is known by colleagues and friends - is a man of serious countenance, firm bearing and penetrating gaze who has a big heart. Since his beginnings, walking with the Jesuits, he has dedicated his life not only to reflection, but also to accompanying those below. In the seventies, he began to investigate the situation of the garbage pickers in Monterrey: he impregnated his clothes with the smell of garbage to understand, from a Marxist point of view, the exploitation they lived through, given that in the end all waste is money. Today his concern has grown and he looks with anguish at the multiple dispossessions that are experienced both in Mexico and beyond. However, in his journey he has understood that in order to maintain hope we must listen and learn from social movements, anti-capitalist struggles, emancipatory and autonomous processes that give us clues to create alternatives for life.

With a head full of concerns, Doc has been trying to answer them through his writings for 60 years. He writes incessantly: an article, a book, a chapter... and so he has hundreds of publications. Among my favorites are his books Rethinking social movements (Alonso, 2013) and Anti-capitalist explorations (Alonso, 2019), but they are certainly all worthwhile. With the same fervor with which he writes, he cares about the world and the people who inhabit it. It is not surprising, therefore, that he is a valued companion of researchers, activists and social fighters for his commitment, warmth and humility. Doc is the proof that, in the face of a hierarchical and exclusionary academic industry, another science is possible, one that is dialogic, collaborative, respectful and committed.

The chair that bears his name is proof of this. It is a stimulating space for analysis, discussion and dialogue to perceive the reasons and feelings of social struggles and the ways in which they are testing alternatives to a system of multiple domination. Likewise, it is an effort to innovate and seek ways to make an open science that breaks with vertical approaches; as he would say, "to get down to ground level and wander around inquiring with those from below how to understand and act an inclusive world that we are forging day by day" (Alonso, 1997-2017). In this way, it supports publications rooted in critical thinking and militant research written, above all, by young researchers. It thus has a collection of 45 daring and discordant books that rehearse that other science.

To begin this interview, the Doc explains how he came to do research on social movements and offers an account of the first projects he was involved in and the lessons he learned. In a world in turmoil, it was difficult not to look at peasant struggles, electoral, women's, students' and workers' movements, urban and cultural resistance, especially in a country where democracy did not seem to be consolidating. The influence that Pablo González Casanova had on his vision and trajectory stands out. He began with analyses focused on elections, democracy, political parties, classes, etc.; however, he shares with us how, since 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (ezln) changed his perspective.

For the Doc, Zapatismo was "the new Mexican Revolution", which soon proved to be something more, as it broke all kinds of schemes and categorizations. Although he has gone through several stages, for him what has marked him most has been the following: 1. its openness, flexibility and self-criticism to seek and make paths; 2. exposing how all our ills come from capitalism; 3. the role of women in designing new dynamics outside patriarchy. However, she looks with concern at how the State with its military and paramilitary, and now together with the narco, continues to try to destroy this autonomous life; nevertheless, she explains that, even in the face of these violent attacks, Zapatismo innovates and continuously projects its defense. To this end, he presents his vision of the recent attempts to create these other possible worlds in the midst of so much violence.

The Doc is grateful to the Zapatista movement because the meeting spaces created by this movement have brought him closer to other struggles such as those of the Kurdish and Mapuche people. He sees in common in all these resistances that, despite the war situation that plagues them, they manage to defend and maintain their autonomy, to fight for life in the face of the death that capitalism spreads. The Doc, although shyly and respectfully admits his process of depatriarchalization, admires and highlights the role of Kurdish women. Likewise, he shares the vision of the weichafe Mapuche Moira Millán that the destruction of the planet - the ongoing "terricide" - is deeply linked to feminicide. She thus tells us that there can be no "revolution from below" that is not anti-capitalist and at the same time anti-patriarchal.

His admiration for other struggles has also manifested itself in his close accompaniment of those in Jalisco. He provides spaces for meeting and dialogue with them, but above all he seeks ways to support them. This has been the case with the coca community of Mezcala. His generosity was seen, for example, when in 2011 he donated the amount received for having won the Jalisco Award to the Mezcala community to use it in the criminal proceedings of its inhabitants unjustly accused by an invader. Today, the Doc is recognized as a "communitarian", as explained by the community member Rocío Moreno, because his work "is different from that of the academics, because we have seen how not only our people, but also the different struggles in Jalisco -but not only- have opened spaces from the coldness and inhumanism of the universities to make our demands and positions heard" (Moreno, 2025).

Last year, the Doc celebrated his 45th anniversary at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (ciesas), and is an outstanding example of a tireless researcher and a wonderful person. I have been fortunate to have known him for 17 years when I started as his research assistant. His open-minded perspective, his incisive ideas, his collaborative approach, his detailed eye and his unconditional generosity remain with me as great lessons. Therefore, in this interview I wanted to ask him for his recommendations and advice for those of us who are still looking for ways to face the multiple crises and to walk through the different struggles. In a concise way he suggests "to doubt everything", "to search and not get tired", "to be willing to correct ourselves" and "to be open and learn from people".

This interview is not only a testimony of his years of dedication and struggle to secure futures for the planet, but also includes a series of clues to achieve it.

Bibliography

Alonso, Jorge (2013). Repensar los movimientos sociales. México: ciesas.

— (2019). Exploraciones anticapitalistas. Guadalajara: Cátedra Jorge Alonso.

— (1997-2017). ¿Quiénes somos? Cátedra Jorge Alonso. Recuperado de: https://catedraalonso-ciesas.udg.mx/quienes-somos Consultado el 21 de enero de 2025.

Moreno, Rocío (2025). “Prefacio”, en Inés Durán Matute (coord.). Saberes para otros mundos posibles. Guadalajara: Cátedra Jorge Alonso.

Inés Durán Matute D. in Social Sciences from the University of Sydney (Australia) and has completed postdoctoral fellowships in Mexico, the United States and Germany. She is currently a researcher at ciesas (Western headquarters) and belongs to the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies (Germany). From a militant stance, he investigates the gears of authoritarianism, capitalism and socio-ecological collapse and the prospects for anti-capitalist struggles and social change. His publications include the following: Indigenous peoples and the geographies of power. Mezcala narratives on neoliberal governance. Mexico: Century xxi, 2019; with Rocío Moreno. The struggle for life in the face of megaprojects in Mexico. Guadalajara: Cátedra Jorge Alonso, 2021; and as co-editor Beyond Molotovs. A Visual Handbook of Anti-Authoritarian Strategies. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2024.

Jorge Alonso Sánchez is Research Professor Emeritus of the ciesasNational Researcher Emeritus at the snimember of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, head of the bi-institutional chair of the University of Guadalajara and of the ciesas which bears his name. He has published many books, book chapters, articles, forewords and reviews. For almost ten years he edited the magazine Disagreements. Her research topics focus on popular anti-capitalist movements and on the construction from below of alternatives in defense of life and the planet. She has highlighted the primordial role of women in the Kurdish, Mapuche and Zapatista movements.