home » Vol 1 Issue 1 (2018) » Entrevistas » Social sciences here and now: meanings and perspectives of the research profession

Social sciences here and now: meanings and perspectives of the research profession

Interview with
*

*

* Alan knight He is Professor of Latin American History at the University of Oxford, England. Before that, he was Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. His work is oriented to the study of the modern history of Latin America, especially of Mexico. He is interested in: peasant movements, social revolutions, populism, caciquismo, and imperialism (in the Americas). Among his books are: The Mexican Revolution (2 volumes 1986); US-Mexican Relations (1987); México, From the Begining to the Spanish Conquest and Mexico: The Colonial Era (2 volumes 2002); Y Revolution, Democracy and Populism in Latin America (2005). He has coordinated books on the oil industry in Mexico, Mexican caciquismo, and superstition in history. He is currently preparing a third volume of a general history of Mexico (from independence to the present) and investigating the history of Mexico in the 1930s.

* Claudio Palma Mancilla He recently graduated from the CIESAS Occidente Doctoral Program in Social Sciences, specializing in Social Anthropology. Her thesis research addresses the history of the Huilliche (indigenous society of southern Chile) and the pre-eminence of the indigenous cultural matrix, the az mapu, as the foundation of their agency capacity to defend the harassed territory since the end of the century. xix. He has a degree in History from the Department of Historical Sciences of the University of Chile, and a teacher in Continental Regional History from the Faculty of History of the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. It has been dedicated to the study of the Mapuche society of southern Chile and Argentina during the century xix and xx, mainly in its inter-ethnic spheres with Chilean society.

* Joel Pedraza Mandujano He is a doctoral student in Social Sciences at CIESAS-Occidente, his research topics include migration, communication, technologies and youth. Outstanding publications: "Social networks and communicative meaning in Mexican Migration Networks in the US" in The digital transformation in public sphere (2016)

In the framework of the conference Social Sciences Here and Now. Senses and Perspectives of the Research Profession, developed at Ciesas Occidente on November 6 and 7, 2014, we had the opportunity to interview the English historian Alan Knight, from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Oxford. The meeting not only served as a platform for debate and communication between the exhibitors and attendees, but also to dialogue on a more personal level with researchers about the themes and central axes on which it was discussed in the work meetings.

Professor Knight is a renowned Latin American historian, who has specialized in the history of the Mexican Revolution, coming to be considered a fundamental author in this field of knowledge about the Mexican past. In addition, Dr. Knight has investigated other issues in the history of America - such as populism or economic crises - and has also reflected on Latin American and Mexican historiography, thanks to an overall and interdisciplinary vision of academic production and his vast experience in the knowledge of the issues, problems and sources that bring us closer to the past.

Among his works stands out Mexican Revolution, originally published in English by Cambridge in two volumes (1986), published in Spanish by the Fondo de Cultura Económica (1996). In recent years, Knight has written three volumes of a general history of Mexico, from pre-Hispanic times to the present day, but without leaving aside the problems that focus on social history, long-range reflections and, above all, interest in Mexican and Latin American history outside the continent.

In this interview, we discuss research and the importance of social sciences in the development of knowledge today, both central points of the debate "here and now" that took place in the meeting held in Ciesas Occidente.