DR. LUIS FERNANDO ANGOSTO FERRÁNDEZ

PhD – Queen’s University of Belfast
MPhil – University College Cork
BA (Licenciatura) – Universidad de Granada

After graduating from the University of Granada (Spain) in Political Science and holding an Erasmus studentship at University College Cork, I completed an MPhil in Folklore and Ethnology at this very Irish University. For my MPhil I conducted fieldwork in Jerez de la Frontera, while analysing the role of the flamenco tradition in contemporary processes of identity boundary demarcation between local and foreign populations. I then completed my PhD in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University of Belfast, with a thesis that, articulating scholarly enquiry around the concepts of ethnicity, citizenship and indigenous political organisation, examined the relations between the Venezuelan state and indigenous peoples in the context of the Bolivarian political process. For my doctoral research I conducted a year and a half of fieldwork in Venezuela, principally based in a Pemon community of the Gran Sabana. After doctoral graduation I returned to Venezuela and worked for five years at the Bolivarian University in Ciudad Bol'var, while also conducting further research in the country.

Research

My current research analyses, from a comparative perspective, the relationships between indigenous peoples and the state in Latin America, and particularly in countries where state reform is adopting socialist leanings (including Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua). In this research there is a concern with studying, from and anthropological perspective, individual and collective political agency in power struggles that are structured through discourses of ethnicity (particularly around the concept of ‘indigeneity’) and race. Beyond scholarly enquiry, this analysis is also undertaken as the grounding of thought and discussion that, in applied terms, envisages ways of strengthening civic forms of cohabitation and democratic organisation in the contemporary polis.

Research interests

• Indigenous peoples and the state in Latin America (social movements, statecraft)
• Ethnicity and race (notions, constructions and uses of ethnic and racial identities)
• Multiculturalism and plurinationality (politics of recognition, politics of redistribution and citizenship)
• Political agency and organisation (individual and group stratagems, social change, electoral processes)
• Ethnographic and participatory research methods

Selected publications

Books

• (2012): Everlasting countdowns: race, ethnicity and national censuses in Latin American states. Newcastle (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Co-edited with Sabine Kradolfer

Journal articles

• (forthcoming - 2013): 'Mundo perdido, para'so encontrado: lugar, identidad y producción en la Gran Sabana, Venezuela'. Revista Colombiana de Antropolog'a, 49(1).
  ['Lost world, paradise found: place, identity and production in Gran Sabana, Venezuela']
• (2012): “The omnivorous science: Jean and John Comaroff on the politics of anthropology, capitalism and contemporary states”. AIBR, Journal of Iberoamerican Anthropology, 7(3): 271-276.
  (in Spanish): "La ciencia omn'vora: antropolog'a, capitalismo y estados contemporáneos según Jean y John Comaroff".
• (2012): ‘Participación y representación ind'gena en los procesos electorales venezolanos’ [‘Indigenous participation and representation in Venezuelan electoral processes’]. América Latina Hoy. Vol. 60: 153-182.
• (2011) ‘La competencia por la representación ind'gena en las elecciones venezolanas (2004-2010)’ [The competition for indigenous representation in Venezuelan elections (2004-2010)]. Cuestiones Pol'ticas, Vol. 27, No. 46: 13-54.
• (2010): ‘Pueblos ind'genas, multiculturalismo y la nueva geometr'a del poder en Venezuela’ [‘Indigenous peoples, multiculturalism and the new geometry of power in Venezuela’]. Cuadernos del Cendes, nº 73: 97-132.
• (2010): ‘Dos proyectos y un destino: investigación-acción participativa y la Unidad Básica de Organización Curricular “Proyecto” en la Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela’. [Two projects and one destiny: participatory action-research and the Basic Unit of Curricular Organization at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela]. Diálogo de Saberes, No. 7/8/9: 218-225.
• (2009): ‘Donde lo pemón se torna ind'gena: perspectivas etnográficas para el estudio de las pol'ticas étnicas y la conciencia colectiva’ [‘Where Pemon goes indigenous: ethnographic perspectives for the study of ethnic politics and collective consciousness’]. Antropológica, Tomo LIII, n. 111112: 13-34.
• (2009): ‘Bol'var, espejo de la revolución: los comicios regionales (2008) en Guayana’. [‘Bol'var, mirror of the revolution: regional elections (2008) in Guayana’]. Revista Venezolana de Econom'a y Ciencias Sociales, vol. 15, n. 3: 13-35.
• (2008): ‘Pueblos ind'genas, guaicaipurismo y socialismo del siglo XXI en Venezuela’ [‘Indigenous peoples, guaicaipurismo and socialism of the twenty-first century in Venezuela]. Antropológica, Tomo LII, n. 110: 9-33.
• (2002): ‘On the relationship between anthropology and literature, with a brief examination of Mario Vargas Llosa’s El Hablador’. Béascna, 1: 101-116.
• (2001): ‘Geographical imaginaries and symbols of cultural identity. Representations of Spain, Flamenco images and the creation of geographies of difference”. Chimera, UCC Geographical Journal, 16: 86-91.

Book chapters

• (2012): ‘National censuses and indigeneity in Venezuela’. In L.F. Angosto Ferrández and S. Kradolfer (eds.) Everlasting countdowns: race, ethnicity and national censuses in Latin American states. New Castle (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• (2012): ‘Race, ethnicity and national censuses in Latin American states: comparative perspectives’. In L.F. Angosto Ferrández and S. Kradolfer (eds.) Everlasting countdowns: race, ethnicity and national censuses in Latin American states. New Castle (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Chapter co-authored with Sabine Kradolfer.
• (2007): ‘Translating territories: mapping codes of power among the Pemon people, Venezuela’. In S. Kelly and D. Johnston (eds.) Betwixt and Between: place and cultural translation. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• (2007): ‘Demarcación de tierras y el concepto de territorio en el pueblo Pemon: efectos de un proceso de textualización’. In Lino Meneses Pacheco, Gladys Gordones Rojas y Jacqueline Clarac (eds.) Lecturas Antropológicas de Venezuela. Mérida (Venezuela): Editorial Venezolana, pp. 453-460.

Book reviews

• 2012. Review of “The Mayan in the Mall: Globalization, Development, and the Making of Modern Guatemala, by J. T. Way, Durham and London, Duke University Press. For Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, Vol. 18, Issue 2: 189-191.

Supervision

Current PhD projects and candidates

Project:
Intercultural Health at the Frontier of Expanding Nation-States: The Contested Amazonian Border Region of Ecuador and Peru. This project examines the hybridisation between indigenous and western medical practice in communities experiencing the expansion of modernity from the nation-state centres of Ecuador and Peru into the remote, jungle regions of these nationsʼ territories
Candidate: Christian Tym
Role: Associate Supervisor; Dr Vek Lewis, Principal Supervisor