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As a low-income, first-generation college student, I did not have the opportunities that many of my wealthier cohort members had to go and visit the places we wanted to do research in. Tinker was instrumental in giving me that “first look” experience where I could get the lay of the land, meet people, and develop a research project for my dissertation that was community-defined.
Being a Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison radically changed my academic career. It was the first time I had the luxury to solely teach and research (I always had administrative duties along with teaching and research, as is common in the Global South). In this intellectual space, my publishing career really took off. For example, I co-edited the book, Law in the New Developmental State: the Brazilian Experience in Latin American Context. As a direct result of my TVP experience, I became the Dean of the Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia), the fifth-ranked law school in Latin America, and was offered a job at the Sciences Po Law School in Paris.
The cultural exchange and my understanding of the complex cultural aspects of environmental issues that I gained through the Tinker FRG has been transformational in how I view my work and environmentally related work broadly… I have taken these lessons to heart and draw on them daily, even if the majority of my work is now focused on the United States.
Being a TVP at the University of Chicago was certainly one of the impactful experiences in my career. I had the opportunity to interact with exceptional students in different disciplines, colleagues across the university, and Chicagoans during community presentations at Malcolm X College and KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation. I also developed a close academic relationship with Brodwyn Fischer (History Dept and CLAS), which I consider the most important result of my TVP experience. Together, we organized two seminars bringing together Brazilian and U.S. researchers, edited a volume on slavery, and wrote a chapter in the recently published book, Afro-Latin American Studies.
The FRG experience put me in touch with academics (in Latin America) who helped me rethink my project entirely. I would not have the dissertation topic I have without that rigorous mentorship.
When I was a Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Texas in Austin in 2017, I was just starting my mandate as the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants at the United Nations. Being a TVP enabled me to have many fruitful interactions with academics and civil society organizations working on migration issues in Texas.
The fieldwork that I was able to conduct in El Salvador thanks to the Tinker FRG was a real turning point. It allowed me to throw myself into a sink-or-swim situation where it was up to me to figure out whether I could really construct and carry out a coherent research project independently.
In 2010, I had the opportunity to visit again the University of Wisconsin-Madison, not as a student as I was 25 years earlier, but as Tinker Visiting Professor. I owe two career achievements to this TVP experience. I was appointed to the scientific committee of the International Human Dimensions Program for Global Environmental Change, and I joined CLACSO’s (Latin American Council for Social Sciences) effort to connect social and environmental issues, such as political ecology, climate change, and public policy. Five years after being a TVP, I organized a project to compare the historical experience of the Far West in the U.S. with the appropriation of the Amazon. Through this, I have been able to partner with other prominent American historians on environmental history.
The experience gave me tools that I use in my research today. And although I cherish the time I spent in the Amazon, the experience forced me to reflect on my personal goals, and I realized I did not want the career of a tropical biologist, as I always had thought.
During the Fall of 2014, I was fortunate to go back to my doctoral Alma Mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as a TVP. Besides the rare sensation of having arrived “home” as the shuttle bus from Chicago approached Lake Mendota, the multiple seminars and conversations in Madison were highly stimulating to start writing my book, The Neoliberal Diet: Healthy Profits, Unhealthy People. It was delightful to see my former professors Erik Olin Wright and Jess Gilbert at the research seminar in Sociology of Economic Change and Development. While most people were different from those in my times as a graduate student, the intellectual vibrancy remained unchanged.
As a TVP at Columbia University, I had the opportunity to share my work with colleagues from all over the world, get insightful feedback and consolidate new avenues of collaboration with various institutions. I also had the most rewarding experience teaching to talented students about issues that really matter to our region including “wicked” policy debates that have enriched my perspective on drugs, development and politics in Latin America.
I was able to discover that my original idea for dissertation research was not viable and adjust accordingly.
It was the seed grant that opened up my academic career.
The Tinker FRG provided the catalyst for my future studies and research in Latin America. From that initial project, I was able to develop a research program that produced valuable collaborations, three journal articles, and two chapters of my dissertation. I was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and several additional field research grants which have helped me pursue my career goals.
The research contacts I have established, the inspiration I gained through them, and my fieldwork in Peru have all been crucial for shaping me as a researcher.