This interview corresponds to the second part of the talk held with Professor Claudio Lomnitz, which took place on April 19, 2023. In the academic world Lomnitz is recognized for his books that deal with important topics to think about national culture with anthropological and historical perspectives, such as nationalism, regional cacique power, the Mexican culture of death, the border with the United States, violence and religion; to intimate topics such as his own family legacy based on a diasporic genealogy.

It is not easy to circumscribe Claudio in a single discipline; although he is highly recognized as an anthropologist (merits that led him to be the current director of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University in New York), he was also accredited as a historian in 2021, when he was named member of the Mexican Academy of History. In addition, Claudio is one of the few anthropologists who is prestigious beyond the university environment, due to his performance as a columnist in the newspaper The Day and to his publications of monthly essays in the magazine links. On different occasions Lomnitz has said that academics should be intellectuals with the capacity to influence society. His call evokes the glorious past of Mexican anthropology which, with Manuel Gamio, came to have great influence in the project of national construction. Although today anthropology has lost its presence in decision making and is far from making its books a part of the national agenda, it is still a long way from being an important part of the Mexican society. best sellersClaudio relies on the validity of anthropology to think and find ways out of the labyrinth that traps contemporary culture and society. And, as if that were not enough, Lomnitz has also ventured into the performing arts that expand the frontiers of the academic environment.

The first part of the interview addressed his main research contributions. His books were discussed and Claudio shared with us the influences he has had on his thinking. In this second part, two lesser-known topics about his trajectory are addressed. The first has to do with his incursion as a scriptwriter in two musical plays. Alberto Bulnes and The big familywhich he made together with his brother Alberto.

During the interview, the theme of creativity, present in Lomnitz's career, is highlighted. While we know that it is necessary not only in the phase of scientific dissemination but also to conceive new topics and risky questions, we must recognize that it is a complex issue that, as Jesús Martín Barbero said, leads us to navigate in dark seas without maps to discover new seas. We addressed the subject of creativity. In the interview he talked about his taste for music, for the arts and for theater. What can creativity contribute to the task of softening power, to imagine new possible worlds, what can be done for society and for the academy from creative and artistic productions, or, better said, how to establish these intersections between critical thinking and art without, on the one hand, losing scientific rigor and, on the other, without dissecting the creative spirit of imagination, or making it boring as hell? Easier, how do you reconcile it? These questions opened Lomnitz's reflections and answers.

In his conversation he allows us to recognize the fears he had when he ventured into a medium in which dramatization is central and the context, so central to the work of the anthropologist and historian, is blurred. I am sure that this reflective part about his own fears, and at the same time about the new scopes offered by leaving the academic environment to other scenarios, will be of great interest to our readers of Encartes. The popularization of science attracts us with the possibility of socializing and broadening the audiences for the knowledge that is produced in the universities. It is the way to give life to our efforts. But it also risks trivializing or even weakening the rigor with which we describe in books in great detail the findings of a science based on experimental methods.

The topic of its diasporic identity was also addressed in order to reflect on the features it imprints in its way of thinking and producing knowledge, always outside the "original" place, but at the same time always re-founding and establishing bases. How important is it to place Mexico in the curriculum and in the North American academy? How should we Mexicans think of ourselves with respect to the United States and North Americans with respect to Mexico?

The last part of the interview takes up his recent book The jurist and the anthropologist: conversations from curiosity. (2022), in which anthropology converses with jurist José Ramón Cossío. The central theme revolves around recognizing how each one understands, interprets and names so differently the same world in which we live. In this dialogical essay, Claudio steps outside the usual boundaries of academic and professional disciplines to transgress boundaries of knowledge. One of the most challenging topics is how to think about the contemporary family and the challenges of how to legislate its multiple concretions from the legal field.

I had the opportunity to ask him about the importance of recognizing not only the validity of specialized knowledge, but mainly the mutual ignorance of the other in order to achieve dialogic knowledge. What does anthropology have to learn from the legal world; and what does anthropology have to teach lawyers to legislate differently or to understand the law? I believe that his reflections provide an important clue for dialogical and horizontal methodologies that require the stripping of the academic pretension of knowing everything, as well as the value of accepting ignorance as a source of curiosity to know the other. In his reflections you will find a change of attitude that seems necessary to broaden academic knowledge.

To close the interview, Claudio shares with us the contemporary challenges for anthropology and sociocultural scholars in general.

Bibliography

Lomnitz, Claudio (2022). El jurista y el antropólogo. Conversaciones desde la curiosidad. México: Penguin Random House.

Renée de la Torre holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the ciesas and the University of Guadalajara. Member of the sni level iii and the National Academy of Science. She is a professor-researcher at the ciesas Occidente, in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is co-founder of the Network of Researchers of the Religious Phenomenon in Mexico (rifrem). During his research career he has been dedicated to the study of religious diversity in Mexico; to the study of new religious movements; to the emergence of alternative spiritualities such as New Age and neo-Mexicanity and more recently he has investigated the dynamics of transnationalization of Aztec ritual dances and popular religiosity. He has made more than a dozen exhibitions of ethnographic photography. Among his most recent publications is the book Latin American variations of the New Age. ciesasMexico (2013), translated into English. New Age in Latin America. Popular Variations and Ethnicy Appropriations.Brill (2016). She is the author of Ultra-Baroque Catholicism: Multiplied Images and Decentered Religious Symbols. Social Compass (2016); and co-author of the following articles, "Routes et sens postcoloniaux de la transnationalisation religieuse". Tiers Monde (2016); "Religious Studies in Latin America. Annual Review of Sociology(2016); "The temazcal: a pre-Hispanic ritual transculturalized by alternative spiritual networks". Social Sciences and Religion (2016), and "Religion and Rescaling: How Santo Toribio Put Santa Ana on the Global Religious Map." Current Sociology (2016). orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3914-4805

Claudio Lomnitz works on the anthropology of national societies, experimenting with various genres of writing, from sociological essays to drama, from historical narrative to journalism. Author of more than a dozen books. He has taught at universities in Mexico and the United States, and has been a visiting professor at European and Latin American universities. He has served as director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago, the Center for Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York, and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, where he founded and directs the Center for Mexican Studies. He is a tenured Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University.