26 Mar 2025

Episode 38: El español de Cuba

In this episode of the HCIAS Podcast, Dr. Ana María Mafud, a member of the Academia Cubana de la Lengua and professor at the Universidad de La Habana, speaks with HCIAS research associate Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella about Spanish in Cuba. They discuss the origins of Cuban Spanish as a distinct dialect in historic migratory processes, as well as its social significance in the modern nation.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

18 Feb 2025

Episode 37: The Latino Vote in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

In this episode of the HCIAS Podcast, Junior Professor Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González welcomes Dr. Angela X. Ocampo, assistant professor of Mexican American and Latino/a Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, for a conversation about the Latino Vote in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. They discuss the complexity and diversity of the Latino community, its evolving political behavior, and the impact of key issues like immigration and the economy on civic engagement. 

Host: Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González, Junior Professor for Migration and the Americas, Heidelberg University

25 Jan 2025

Episode 36: Inovação Digital no Ensino de Língua Portuguesa

In the latest episode of the HCIAS podcast, Dr. Rodrigo Schaefer, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, joins Dr. Marília Pinheiro Pereira of the Leitorado Brasileiro Guimarães Rosa Heidelberg, to explore the role of digital innovations in teaching Portuguese. Based on their insights from academic research as well as practical experience, they discuss intercultural education, curriculum adaptation, and projects fostering global connections in the classroom.

Host: Dr. Marília Pinheiro Pereira, Leitorado Brasileiro Leitorado Brasileiro Guimarães Rosa Heidelberg at the HCIAS

This episode has been recorded in Portuguese

17 Dec 2024

Episode 35: Celebramos más de dos años del HCIAS Podcast

In the final episode of 2024, we reflect on more than two years of HCIAS Podcast. HCIAS director Prof. Dr. Francisco Moreno-Fernández joins the HCIAS publications team to discuss the growing influence of audiovisual media in science communication in general, and the role podcasting plays in teaching and knowledge transfer activities at the HCIAS specifically.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Spanish

28 Nov 2024

Episode 34: Diversity and Objectivity in the Migration Coverage

In the latest episode of the HCIAS podcast, we continue the HCIAS Young Researchers series. Doctoral researcher Natalia Messer Molina speaks with HCIAS Publications Coordinator Marian Orjuela about her project on diversity and objectivity of migration coverage in Chilean news media. Natalia discusses the significance of migration reporting in Latin America and globally, while also sharing her academic journey and future research plans.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University.

14 Nov 2024

Episode 33: Amazon Week: Liderazgo Femenino en la Amazonia Colombiana

In this episode of the HCIAS podcast, recorded as part of Berlin’s Amazon Week, women’s rights and environmental defender La Maga talks about women’s leadership in the Colombian Amazon with HCIAS Publications Coordinator Marian Orjuela. La Maga shares her experience leading collectives that empower women in high-risk contexts to defend their lands and rights, and discusses how intergenerational leadership, solidarity and political participation are vital tools to ensure that the Amazon region and women’s human rights are recognized and protected.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

17 Oct 2024

Episode 32: Chinese Migration and Exclusion Across the Americas

In the latest episode of the HCIAS podcast, Junior Prof. Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González and HCIAS publications coordinator Marian Orjuela speaks with historian Dr. Albert Manke, Università Ca‘ Foscari, Italy, about Chinese migration across the Americas. They discuss how policies of exclusion and discrimination in the region’s colonial and early post-colonial past continue to shape migration narratives today.

Hosts: Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González, Junior Professor of Migration and the Americas, Heidelberg University; Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

17 Oct 2024

09 Jul 2024

Episode 31: Violencia contra la prensa en México

In this episode, we continue our new series on HCIAS Young Researchers. Luis Pesce, a doctoral researcher at the HCIAS, joins us for a conversation about his project investigating Violence Against the Press in Mexico and the use of Social Media for Criminal Communication. Luis lets us know about the theoretical background and methodological approaches he is employing to get a broader understanding of the phenomenon, identify predictors of violence, and hopefully help policymakers create better legislation and protective measures for journalists.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

21 May 2024

Episode 30: El español como lengua de herencia en Alemania

For our latest podcast episode, we have the first of a new series called HCIAS Young Researchers, in which we share the ongoing projects that doctoral and postdoctoral researchers are developing in the HCIAS. This time, Charlotte Blattner and Ana Gómez-Pavón Durán talk to HCIAS publications coordinator Marian Orjuela about their PhD projects investigating the phenomenon of Spanish as a heritage language in Germany.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

06 May 2024

Episode 29: Mala de memórias

In this episode, Marília Pinheiro Pereira, of the Leitorado Brasileiro at the HCIAS, tells us about the collaborative project Mala de memórias de Julia Mann, which she coordinated with funding from the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin. The project uses the story of Julia Mann, the Brazillian mother of authors Thomas and Heinrich Mann, to teach Portuguese as a heritage language in Germany.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode had been recorded in Portuguese.

26 Mar 2024

Episode 28: Periodismo Científico

In this podcast episode, HCIAS Publications editor Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella interviews Dr. Michele Catanzaro, an award winning science journalist, whose writing has appeared in prestigious national and international media outlets, and a professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Their discussion focusses on the value of independent, critical science journalism in the modern world. This includes a case when investigative reporting by Dr. Catanzaro and colleagues helped correct a miscarriage of justice based on faulty science, as well as Dr. Catanzaro’s role in the (Periodismo Científico de Excelencia) project, which is dedicated fighting misinformation and maintaining a robust ecosystem of high quality information by curating a database of exemplary journalism in Spanish.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

22 Feb 2024

Episode 27: Litio, Estado y Futuro en Bolivia

In this episode of the HCIAS podcast, Dr. Felipe Fernández, a postdoctoral researcher in the International Research Training Group ‘Temporalities of Future’ at the at the Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, sits down with HCIAS doctoral researcher Rafael Hernández Westpfahl and HCIAS Publications coordinator Marian Orjuela for a conversation about his research project Litio, Estado y Futuro en Bolivia: una antropología del subsuelo. The discussion covers Dr. Fernández’ research into the interactions between Bolivia geologists and the scientific knowledge they produce in estimating the extent and value of the nation’s subsoil resources, and the state’s progressive extraction plans.

Hosts: Rafael Hernández Westpfahl, HCIAS doctoral researcher, Heidelberg University; Marian Orjuela HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

01 Feb 2024

Episode 26: Food for Justice

In this episode, HCIAS deputy director Prof. Dr. Renata Motta, Professor of Society, Culture, and Communication In Ibero-America, speaks to HCIAS Publications coordinator Marian Orjuela about leading the research group Food for Justice: Power, Politics and Food Inequalities in a Bioeconomy (2019-2024). Prof. Dr. Motta discusses how the project combines theoretical perspectives on global inequalities with research into popular movements for social justice in the fields of agriculture and food, and elaborates on some of the case studies the group have made in both Germany and Brazil.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Portuguese.

17 Jan 2024

Episode 25: The Postmodern Paradox of Spanish in the U.S.

In this episode, HCIAS visiting scholar Dr. Andrew Lynch, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Miami, joins HCIAS Publications editor Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella for a conversation about the postmodern paradox of Spanish in the United States. Drawing on his extensive research into sociolinguistics and cultural studies, Dr. Lynch illustrates how a wide range of factors, including neo-liberal market based ideologies, media representations, and migratory flows have shaped the complex and sometimes contradictory attitudes and perceptions toward Spanish in the U.S.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

21 Dec 2023

Episode 24: Strangers to Peace

In this episode of the HCIAS podcast, Dr. Colleen Alena O’Brien, producer of the documentary Strangers to Peace and a postdoctoral researcher at the Universität des Saarlandes, joins HCIAS Publications Coordinator Marian Orjuela for a conversation about the film, which was screened as part of the OBSERVA series organized by the HCIAS. Dr. O’Brien talks about the process of making the documentary, which tells the story of three former members of the FARC as they attempt to re-integrate into Colombian civil society, as well as the role cinema can play in post-conflict societies.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

01 Dec 2023

Episode 23: Beyond Trust – Migrants and their Interactions with Smuggling Facilitators on the US-Mexico Border

In this episode of the HCIAS podcast, Dr. Gabriella Sanchez of Georgetown University joins HCIAS Junior Prof. Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González and regular host Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella for a fascinating discussion of her research into the complex and controversial subject of migrant smuggling. Both migrants and the smugglers who facilitate their journeys are often subject to stereotypical representations, not only in the media, but also academia. Dr. Sanchez’s shares some of the insights from her ethnographic research into what the real lives and relationships of the individuals behind these depictions are like.

Hosts: Dr. Yaatsil Guevara González, Junior Professor of “Migration and the Americas”, Heidelberg University; Dr. Hector Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

09 Nov 2023

Episode 22: Salsa from America to Heidelberg

In this edition of the HCIAS podcast, we have a special episode which is a little different from our regular format. This podcast, about the cultural significance of Salsa in America, was produced by Heidelberg University student Rhea Molkenthin as part of the seminar Cultures of Diaspora across Ibero-America led by former HCIAS Junior Prof. Dr. Soledad Álvarez Velasco (currently at the University of Illinois) and HCIAS director Prof. Dr. Francisco Moreno-Fernández. Rhea’s podcast connects the importance of Salsa for the Latino diaspora in New York with the role it plays in the cultural life of Latin American community in Heidelberg, showing how music and dance can be used as a means of creating shared identities.

Hosts: Rhea Molkenthin, Heidelberg University student

26 Oct 2023

Episode 21: La Unión Europea en la encrucijada: migración, economía y América Latina

In this episode of the HCIAS Podcast, two distinguished guests, José Luis García Delgado, professor of Economics and director of the Observatorio Nebrija del Español at Nebrija University, and Rodolfo Gutiérrez Palacios, professor of sociology at the Universidad de Oviedo, join us for a spirited discussion of the challenges facing the EU during Spain’s presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conversation encompasses the role the presidency of the Council plays within the EU’s governing bureaucracy, the strategic priorities Spain placed on the agenda and how this might impact on Europe’s relationship with Latin America.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

28 Sep 2023

Episode 20: Memórias Quebradas

In this episode, HCIAS Publications Coordinator Marian Orjuela is joined by Pablo Pamplona, a PhD candidate at the Universidade de São Paulo, and a visiting doctoral fellow in the HCIAS Doctoral Research Group “Communication and Society in Ibero-America”, Pablo explains a little about his research into collective memory studies and why he chose to pursue this subject at the HCIAS during his six-month research stay funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in cooperation with the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, Brazil). The conversation also touches on a subject near and dear to our own hearts – podcasting! Pablo’s doctoral project involves an analysis of a podcast called Memórias Quebradas (Broken Memories), produced by students at the University of São Paulo, in order to memorialize the social movements and struggles for representation and inclusion that take place on the periphery of their city.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Portuguese.

13 Jul 2023

Episode 19: Los discursos públicos de la pandemia en Argentina

We are joined by Dr. Valeria Abusamra, Professor of Psycholinguistics at Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and a researcher at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina. Dr. Abusamra explains her research into how cognitive processes and social contexts play a role in literacy and textual comprehension, relating this to some of the challenges currently facing educational institutions across Ibero-America. This leads into a discussion with HCIAS director Prof. Dr. Francisco Moreno-Fernández about the ongoing research collaboration between the HCIAS, UBA and CONICET into public discourses surrounding how the pandemic affected education in Argentina.

Hosts: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University; Prof. Dr. Francisco Moreno-Fernández, Professor of Ibero-American Linguistic, Cultural, and Social Studies at Heidelberg University and director of the HCIAS

This episode was recorded in Spanish.

29 Jun 2023

Episode 18: Sobrevivir jogando

In this episode, Prof. Dr. Stephanie Schütze, Professor for Cultural and Social Anthropology at the Lateinamerika-Institut of the Freie Universität Berlin, introduces us to the world of migrant Bolivian women’s amateur football leagues in São Paulo, Brazil. Based on her ethnographic research, Prof. Dr. Schütze explains how football becomes a vehicle for cultural and community gatherings, allows migrants to create spaces of belonging, and above all a way to Sobreviver jogando.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

12 Jun 2023

Episode 17: International Academic Cooperation Across Borders

In this episode, Dr. Ulrike Albrecht, a Consultant for Global Research Cooperation and Internationalization Strategies explains her work as a consultant to us, and discusses the importance of international collaboration in academia, the need to include the so called “forgotten nations” in Latin America, as well as the way science and the humanities can function as shared languages.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

24 May 2023

Episode 16: the Leitorado Brasileiro at Heidelberg University

In this episode, Marília Pinheiro Pereira, fellow of the Programa Leitorado para Instituição Universitária Estrangeira of the Brazilian government, speaks to Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, about her work at the Leitorado Brasileiro in Heidelberg. Marília explains the activities the Leitorado Brasileiro conducts to spread knowledge of the Portuguese language and Brazilian culture throughout the world, and provides details of some of the courses she is teaching at Heidelberg this semester, as well as touching on her own doctoral research into Portuguese as a heritage language in Germany.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications Coordinator, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Portuguese.

04 May 2023

Episode 15: Reflexiones sobre Juan Rulfo y literatura latinoamericana

In this episode, renowned academic, and author, Prof. Dr. Alberto Vital from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México was interviewed by two Master’s students from Heidelberg University, Lorena Villate and Mariel Elizondo. The conversation has a particular focus on the works of Mexican author Juan Rulfo, and its connections to both Latin American and European culture. Prof. Dr. Vital approaches literature from many perspectives, including the study of argumentation, as well as how names and naming play a role in creating meaning in a text.

Hosts: Lorena Villate, Master’s Student in the Department of Romance Studies, Heidelberg University; Mariel Elizondo, Master’s Student in the HCIAS, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

20 Apr 2023

Episode 14: Science’s Political Role

In this episode, Héctor Álvarez Mella and HCIAS Junior Prof. of Innovation and Sustainability in Ibero-America Rosa Lehmann host an interesting discussion with Cecilia Ibarra, a researcher at the Center for Climate and Resilience Research at the Universidad de Chile, for a stimulating conversation about the role of science in politics and the political nature of scientific research. Their discussion touches on issues like the different ways climate change and resource use debates are framed in the Global North and Global South, the importance of increasing participation in the human governance of the environment, as well as what science can (and can’t) contribute to resolving our problems.

Hosts: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University; Rosa Lehmann, Junior Professor of Innovation and Sustainability in Ibero-America, Heidelberg University

30 Mar 2023

Episode 13: Ecologies of Language

In this episode, we are joined by two world renowned Sociolinguists, Cécile Vigouroux, an associate professor of Sociolinguistics at Simon Fraser University in Canada and currently a fellow for the Institute of Advanced Studies in Paris, and Salikoko Mufwene, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago and current Academic Director of the University of Chicago Center in Paris. We talk about just a few of their many contributions to academia, including Professor Mufwene’s research into the evolution of language in mankind and Professor Vigouroux’s field work on how migrations affect language use. The wide ranging discussion reflects the breadth of our guest’s scholarly creativity and touches on thought provoking topics like what linguists have to learn from economists (and vice versa) as well as what can be learned from the Global South.

Host: Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

23 Feb 2023

Episode 12: Literatura, visibilidad y cambio social

In this episode of the HCIAS Podcast, we interview Melibea Obono, a writer and LGBTIQ+ activist from Equatorial Guinea, and the US American writer and translator Lawrence Schimel. We discuss how literature can make subjects who have been marginalized because of their gender, race or other intersectional markers visible. Our guests argue that writers and translators have an important role to play in social change and that literature is a creative space in which the complex realities of the queer movement can be explored.

Host: Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

07 Feb 2023

Episode 11: Construcción colectiva de la memoria en Colombia

In this episode we talk about the social engagement from the scientific community and academia, an starting point from which professor Pardo begins the research on the topic of memorialization processes within the Colombian armed conflict and Peace process. Dr. Neyla Pardo highlights the collective research work on her latest book Memorias en el posacuerdo colombiano: Narrativas-relatos para construir paz, in which students, members of diverse communities affected by the conflict and indigenous leaders took part. Her investigations interconnect art, aesthetics, narratives and memory as discursive constructions that claim new methodological tools to be studied in order to recognize the signic and social value that these devices embody.

Host: Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

19 Jan 2023

Episode 10: Lectura y escritura como rebeldía

In this episode we talk to Spanish writer Marta Sanz on the importance of making women visible in art and literature, a proposal she has developed in her latest work „Enciclopedia secreta: lecturas en el espejo feminista“ (Secret encyclopaedia: readings in the feminist mirror). We also discuss identity and its social dynamics, and how social networks are an emerging tool that shapes society.

Host: Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

21 Dec 2022

Episode 9: La lengua de los hispanos unidos de América

In this episode we have as a special guest, Prof. Dr. Francisco Moreno-Fernández, presenting his latest publication ‚La lengua de los hispanos unidos de América: Crónica de resistencia‘. The conversation revolves around Spanish as a transversal unifying element among Latino and Hispanic communities and their dynamics of resistance. It also goes over the dynamics of coexistence between Spanglish and Spanish, the development of the corpus of the Spanish language in the US, CORPEEU, and the question around the existence of a Spanish of the United States of America?

Host: Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

30 Nov 2022

Episode 8: From Home to Homing in Migration: what does home mean in migratory contexts?

In this episode of the HCIAS Podcast series on Migration and the Americas, we have Prof. Paolo Boccagni from the University of Trento as a guest. The conversation focuses on homing, what does it mean in migratory contexts, how migrants build a new home dealing with markers such as ethnicity and how these main questions have guided the research project ‚Homing: the home migration nexus. Home as a window to migrant belonging integration and circulation‘ funded by the European research council.

Hosts: Dr. Ulrike Gerhard, Professor for Human Geography of North America, Institute of Geography and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA); Judith Keller, PhD student in the graduate program Authority and Trust in American Culture, Society, History, and Politics, Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA); Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

4 Nov 2022

Episode 7: La nueva edad de oro de las series de ficción en España

This episode of the HCIAS Podcast is dedicated to La nueva Edad de Oro de las series de ficción en España. We were discussing the aesthetic and thematic narrative changes experienced by the Spanish audiovisual space in the last decade with Marta Saavedra, Nicolás Grijalba and Rocío Gago, from the Universidad de Nebrija. The conversation focused on the concept of a ’new golden age‘ implies, its new characteristic features, and questions such as how series are interrelated with the Spanish and the international community and which are the opportunities and risks in this new period and how the relationship of the Spanish audiovisual world with Latin America is reshaped due to the current overview.

Host: Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

13 Oct 2022

Episode 6: Artificial Intelligence and Youth

On our sixth episode we have as guest Professor Lionel Brossi Garavaglia from the University of Chile.The dialogue goes over artificial intelligence for social inclusion, digital skills and his project on the discourses of pandemic and youth in Chile

Hosts: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University and Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications coordinator, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

29 Sep 2022

Episode 5: Motherhood and Migration as Infrastructures of Care

As part of the „Migration and the Americas series“ in collaboration with the HCA, in this episode we have as guest Professor Solange Muñoz from the University of Tenesse, Knoxville. The interview focuses on women, their role as mothers and the challenges of migration.

Hosts: Dr. Ulrike Gerhard, Professor for Human Geography of North America at the Institute of Geography and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), Dr. Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Junior Professor of “Migration and the Americas” at the Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies (HCIAS), and Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

9 Sep 2022

Episode 4: Enregisterment: How linguistic items get linked with ways of speaking and identities in the USA

In this episode we have as special guest, Prof. Dr. Dennis Preston from the University of Kentucky. Our conversation focuses on how linguistic items get linked to ways of speaking and how institutions and power relations contribute to build a social perception of language practices in our daily life.

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

25 Aug 2022

Episode 3: Pandemic Religion in Brazil: Sociopolitical perceptions and public theological reflections

In this new episode of the HCIAS Podcast, we have as our guest Prof. Dr. Rudolph von Sinner from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR), Brazil. Amongst his various research interests, our conversation focuses on the study of Public Theology and its development Brazil, contextualizing Latin America and Europe.

Host: Marian Orjuela, HCIAS Publications coordinator, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Portuguese.

11 Aug 2022

Episode 2: Socio-economic changes in Latin America and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic

The social and economic problems facing Latin America and their relation to the COVID-19 pandemic are on the agenda of our HCIAS Podcast. In today’s episode we discuss trade, development, inequality, and poverty in Latin America with Professor Miguel Carrera Troyano from the University of Salamanca (Spain). 

Host: Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.

This episode has been recorded in Spanish.

21 Jul 2022

Episode 1: A critical voice to understand migration in complex times

In this first episode of the HCIAS Podcast Series on Migration and the Americas, we dialogue with the sociologist Cecilia Menjívar, Professor and Dorothy L. Meier Social Equities Chair at the University of California Los Angeles and President of the American Sociological Association (2021-2022). Our conversation focuses on her research interests, critical views over migration seen as a “crisis”, the contested terms of legal violence and legal liminality, the politics of labelling migrants and the role of media.

Hosts: Dr. Ulrike Gerhard, Professor for Human Geography of North America at the Institute of Geography and the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), Dr. Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Junior Professor of “Migration and the Americas” at the Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies (HCIAS), and Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella, research associate and HCIAS Publications editor, Heidelberg University.