International Sociology and International Sociology Reviews

‘Indigenous Peoples’ is our Topic of the Month for August 2024. On this topic, enjoy this month Free Access to this article by Daniel Mato (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela) published in International Sociology, Transnational Networking and the Social Production of Representations of Identities by Indigenous Peoples' Organizations of Latin America. Read on to know more about the author’s trajectory and work.

Daniel Mato

Why are you working on this topic? Could you share an experience, a fact or a person who made you get engage on that research?

D. Mato: This article is one of a series of publications that, between 1992 and 2003, I devoted to studying the practices of some “global agents” in specific local cases. I was interested in this subject for two main reasons. One of them was to contribute to developing a theory of social change in the framework of globalization processes, studying conflicts and negotiations in producing meaning and orientation of practices in concrete experiences. The other reason, of an ethical-political nature, was seeking to counter-balance the fact that “global agents” (i.e., international and bilateral cooperation agencies, the multilateral banks, and transnational foundations, among others) count on many studies on “local” contexts that put them at an advantage to develop their practices. My purpose was to study the practices of global agents to generate knowledge potentially valuable for some subalternized social agents, such as organizations of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America. This latter was possible because, since the mid-1980s, I have maintained collaborative relationships with several intellectuals and leaders of these peoples' organizations, with whom I shared the lessons learned from my research through personal meetings, workshops, and publications in Spanish.

What would you emphasize about your academic trajectory? Can you highlight which have been your academic positions, universities, awards, departments and research centers please?

D. Mato: I am a Doctor in Social Sciences and Principal Researcher at CONICET-National Council for Scientific and Technical Research. Holder of the UNESCO Chair “Higher Education and Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America,” at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero (Argentina). Since 1986, I have developed several collaborative work experiences with indigenous and Afro-descendant intellectuals and organizations throughout Latin America. I have published numerous articles and books on specific issues in Culture and Social Change, Higher Education and Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples, and Racism and Human Rights. Between 1979 and 2010, I was a research professor at Universidad Central de Venezuela and a visiting professor at several universities in various Latin American countries, Spain, and the US.