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Ricardo Sánchez Cárdenas

RicardoSanchez2012@u.northwestern.edu
Advisor: Orloff

Areas of Interest

Social Change, Historical-Comparative Social Science, Political Economy/Marxist Theory, Urban Sociology, Transnational Movements/Migration, (de)Coloniality/Intersectionality Research (race, class, gender, and sexuality), Latina/o Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Qualitative Methods

 

Current Research

Postcolonial constitutions in the Americas

I have been studying the historical antecedents of the last three national constitutional assemblies that convened in the Americas: Venezuela (1998-9), Bolivia (2006-10), and Ecuador (2009-10). I am interested in understanding these processes as (geo)political rituals where (trans)national social movements, namely those organized by Afro-Amerindian peoples, vindicated not only alternative conceptions of rights but also alternative, decisively (post)colonial historicities. In the aftermath of these processes I am interested of exploring the historical significance of these constitutional narratives in relation to a long standing tradition of postcolonial constitutionalism and de-colonial democratization struggles more generally, which I argue can be traced back to the Haitian Revolution in the late eighteenth century.

•  (Re)Constituting Democracy in Latin America: Constituent Assemblies, rapid urbanization, and (post)neoliberalism in Brazil and Venezuela (B.A. Thesis for Urban Studies/Latin American and Latino/a studies -Vassar College)
• Challenging (neo)liberalism in Latin\@ America: Constituent assemblies, democratization struggles, and (post)coloniality (M.A. Thesis, Sociology department –Northwestern University)
  
  
  

 “No Human Being is Illegal!”--Mapping Ecuadorian community organization in Chicago

Since I started my qualitative methods training at Northwestern in 2008 I have been engaged with a group of Ecuadorian migrants organizing around the “no human being is illegal!” motto. This (geo)political challenge has been constitutionally sanctioned in Ecuador (art. 40) and continues to be the main demand of those who have taken the streets of many cities of the U.S. during May 1^st marches since 2006. I have been an observant participant of May 1^st marches in Poughkeepsie, NY (2006, 2007, 2008) and Chicago, IL (2009, 2010). These ethnographic engagements constitute important parts of a broader methodological attempt to conceptualize a transnational social field that is relevant to both the local(ized) needs of the challenges confronted by migrant communities in a daily basis and the broader longue durée of (post)coloniality/modernity. In this vein I currently engage in a variety of community based research projects around these two dimensions of the (geo)political challenges posed by Latin@ migrant communities.

• Citizenship in Movement: observant participation under (post)coloniality (Working paper, presented at 12^th Annual Chicago Ethnography Conference)
• (Trans)nationalism, (trans)modernity, and (post)coloniality: The (geo)political economy of the global sociological imagination (Special fields paper, Northwestern University)

 

Conceptualizing Simultaneity: intersectionality, transnationalism, and (geo)political representations of Latin/@ America

The theoretical imperative to be able to conceptualize simultaneity which have been articulated by theories of intersectionality, transnationalism, and (de)coloniality is a central concern in my academic praxis. Related to my interest in social change within the embodied geographies of Latin@ America broadly defined is my effort to document and historicize the (mis)representations of contemporary Latin/@ American politics that circulate U.S. public opinion as well as academia more generally. This research project seeks to add to an understanding of how the “new racism” is transnational in scope so as to better understand what is at stake in the articulation of transnational anti-racist, therefore de-colonial, epistemological and (geo)political challenges. It also serves the purpose of documenting the ongoing asymmetrical (geo)political relations of power that have been constitutive of the Americas since its inception 500+ years ago and that affect the daily lives of all living within this geohistorical formation.  

• Another Latin/@ America is possible: postcolonial constitutionalism, transnational citizens, and plurinational nation-states  (Working paper)
• The Meaning of Democracy: measuring embodied inequalities and political perceptions in Latin/@ America (Working paper, critical of quantitative analysis of democratization using Latinobarómetro survey data of 17 Latin American countries)
• Migrants’ democratization struggles in Ecuadorian Chicago: transnational research fields, intersectionality, and (de)coloniality (Working paper, reflections on community based research)

 

Epistemological and (geo)political borderlands: the sociological imagination of area studies and ethnic studies in times of neoliberalism

In an attempt to explore all the possibilities that emerge from C.Wright Mills notion of the sociological imagination my research is also deeply committed to the articulation of a geopolitical reflexivity that fosters transdisciplinary work capable of analyzing the power dynamics at play in the intersections of    biography and social history, particularly as it concerns academics working within disciplines and intersdisciplines. Given my own positionality I am particularly interested in the relationships between the social sciences, ethnic studies, and area studies. More specifically I have been attempting to understand the genealogies of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Latina/o, which seem to suggest that the possibility of meaningful collaboration across (inter)disciplinary boundaries that nonetheless is too often truncated by the structural limitations and functional imperatives imposed on academics and their institutions working withing a broader (geo)political economy that has been marked by neoliberal hegemony in the last 30-40 years.

• Buen Vivir/Sumak Kawsay/Suma Qamaña vs Living Better in contemporary Latin/@ American (geo)political imaginaries: embodied geographies vs. neoliberal cartographies (Working paper)
• The the (neo)colonial color line in Latin/@ America: Mapping the (neo)liberal (geo)political economy of race and racism (Working Paper)