Academic education

2019 – present        Habilitation in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI), Free University of Berlin. Habilitation thesis: Fragmented Future? Projections, Expectations, and Imaginaries in the Popular Markets of the Andes

2008 – 2013            PhD in Political Sciences (Dr. rer. pol.), University of Rostock. Thesis: Consecuencias Políticas de la Migración interna en Bolivia

1998 – 2003            Degree in Economics, Universidad Católica Boliviana, La Paz, Bolivia

1997 – 2004            Degree in Sociology, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz, Bolivia      

Professional experience          

2025 – present        Visiting Professorship in Anthropology of the Americas/Cultural and Social Anthropology, Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI), Free University of Berlin

2019 – 2025            Postdoctoral Fellow, International Research Training Group "Temporalities of Future", Institute for Latin American Studies (LAI), Free University of Berlin

2017 – 2019            Annemarie Schimmel Scholarship Holder, Department of Anthropology of the Americas, Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Bonn        

2017 – present        Ombudsperson and Consultant, Eirene e.V.– Internationaler Christlicher Friedensdienst

2016                       Visiting Researcher, Centre for Latin American Studies, University of Florida.

2015 – 2016            Research Fellow, Department of Ibero-American and Latin American History, University of Cologne

2013 – 2014             Junior Fellow, Research Network on Latin America, University of Cologne

2005 – 2006             Junior Fellow, Department of Iberian and Latin American History, University of Cologne

2005 – 2006         Visiting Researcher (DAAD Scholarship Holder), Institute of Iberian and Latin American History, University of Cologne

2005                       Junior Fellow, Institute for Socio-Economic Research (IISEC), Bolivian Catholic University

2004                       Researcher, Topic: "Democracy and Multiculturalism in the Military", Canadian Armed Forces Research Institute and Bolivian Ministry of Defense

2002 – 2003            Research Assistant, Poverty Reduction Program, Pastoral Social Cáritas Bolivia

2001                       Research Assistant, CIPCA – Center for Research and Promotion of Peasantry

Teaching

2025/2026        Free University of Berlin. Seminar: Sprache als Macht: Benennung, Konnotation, und kulturelle Bedeutung.

2025/2026        Free University of Berlin. Seminar: „Wer ist indigen?“ Alterität, Repräsentation und die Erfindung des Othering.

2025/2026        Free University of Berlin. Forschungskolloquium Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie.

2025/2026        Free University of Berlin. Basic course: Konstituierung Lateinamerikas. Con Dr. Lucio Piccoli.

09/2024            The City University of New York, ELS204-Latin American Civilizations, co-teaching with Prof. Dr. Ana María Hernández

2022/2023        Free University of Berlin. Seminar: "Theorien und Methoden der Kultur- und Sozial­anthropologie"    

2021                Free University of Berlin. Seminar: "¿El mercado popular como museo?: Marcos de significación, folklorización y musealización"

2020/21            Free University of Berlin. Seminar: "Etnohistoria. Entre vigencias y emergencias"

01-02/2019       Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), La Paz: PhD program, compact course "Investigación y metodología para elaboración de artículos científicos"

10-11/2018       Free University of Berlin/Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). Summer School:"Social Inequalities and Sustainable Development: Local – National – Global Tensions in Andean Territories"

2017/18            University of Bonn. Plenum: "Etnicidad desde la desigualdad"

2017                University of Bonn. Plenum: "Dinámicas socioculturales en la región andina del siglo XX: Migración, etnicidad y mercados"

04/2017            University of Cologne/DAAD. Program: "DIES ProGRANT: Proposal Writing for Research Grants", Trainer, Buenos Aires

2014/15            University of Cologne, Seminar: "Migración y etnicidad en la región andina del siglo XX"

2014                University of Cologne, Seminar: "Migración y etnicidad en América Latina", co-instructed with Dr. Albert Manke

2010                University of Cologne. Seminar: "Chile, Perú, Bolivia (1810-2010): Una historia de relaciones y conflictos", co-instructed with Dr. Antonio Sáez-Arance

2009/10            University of Rostock. Seminar: "Von der Straße in die Parlamente – Soziale Bewegungen in Südamerika", co-instructed with Dr. Manuel Paulus

2001                Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), "Teoría macroeconómica" (Teaching Assistant to professor Julio Mantilla)

2001                Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB), "Historia del pensamiento económico" (Teaching Assistant to professor Napoleón Pacheco)     

Guest lectures

2024/2025        Free University of Berlin. Contribution to the course "Begriffe und Kontexte der Lateinamerikaforschung ", Invitation by Prof. Dr. Susanne Klengel

2024                Free University of Berlin. Contribution to the course “Lateinamerikastudien damals und heute“, Invitation by Dr. Karina Kriegesmann

6/2021              Free University of Berlin. Contribution to the course "El avance de la derecha en América Latina", Invitation by Prof. Dr. Sergio Costa

09/2019            Amherst College. Contribution to the course "Indigenous women in international relations", Invitation by Prof. Dr. Manuela Picq

2014                Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Departamento de Ciencias Políticas, Contribution to the course "Teoría Política", Invitation by Prof. Dr. Moira Zuazo

2011                Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Contribution to the lecture , "Análisis social y político de la inmigración" and “Teoría del Bienestar”, Invitation by Prof. Dr. Michael Janoschka

Research and Teaching Interests:     
Research methodology
Indigenous epistemology and ontology (Quechua-Kichwa and Aymara)

Social and political ethnography of temporalities

Decolonization

Gender Studies

Economic Anthropology

Knowledge transfer

Development and implementation of RKVP ("Rassismuskritischer Veränderungsprozess") an anti-racism working methodology. Introduced by the international cooperation organization Eirene e.V.. Evaluated by international experts and approved with merit.

"What does it mean to be indigenous? Indigenous Peoples in Latin America." Pedagogical method of workshops for children of the 3rd class (elementary school) and 7th class (Gymnasium) of the education system of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.

Regional focus:

• Bolivia
• Ecuador
• Peru

Current project:

"A Fragmented Future? Imaginaries, Projections, and Expectations in Andean Popular Markets"

This project aims to analyse how multitemporalities –understood as the coexistence of different regimes of historical, social, and economic time– shape the imaginaries of the future, the aspirations, and the collective projections present in the popular markets of the Andes. From an interdisciplinary perspective that draws on theoretical and methodological tools from anthropology, sociology, and economics, the study seeks to understand how these spaces configure alternative ways of imagining the future, particularly in contexts marked by cultural heterogeneity, historical inequality, and structural exclusion.

The study approaches the popular market not merely as a site of economic exchange, but as a sociocultural arena where different epistemologies of time are compared and negotiated. In particular, it focuses on the encounter between a temporality of a spiral in movement –linked to Quechua-Kichwa-Aymara epistemologies- and a linear temporality associated with modernity. Within this framework, the central question arises: how can a shared future be projected from temporally dissonant imaginaries?

Simultaneously, it examines how the State, in several Latin American countries, seeks to reinscribe popular markets within frameworks of touristic patrimonialization and folklorization, while reaffirming consumption models embodied by shopping malls. This contradiction becomes even more significant considering that in certain spaces of the so-called Global North emerges the interest in community-based practices and short supply chains, typical of popular markets, as response strategies to the negative effects of hyperindividualism.

From this double tension, the project aims to investigate the flows, articulations, and episteme that structure the economic logics of popular markets, with particular attention to the agency of indigenous women, who constitute a fundamental, though not exclusive, actor within these spaces. The research seeks to understand the mechanisms of self-regulation, informal institutions, and economic practices that configure a complex system of capital accumulation, redistribution, and circulation. Also, it explores how these local dynamics of economic organization influence collective projections of the future and the elaboration of well-being narratives.

If, as hegemonic modernity suggests, the economy constitutes the structuring nucleus of social life and consumption is its primary indicator of well-being, this study asks: what are the temporal and political grammars through which indigenous communities think and project the future? What does the indigenous episteme of the future reveal about the limitations of the dominant development model?

– Books

2026                     The domestication of time (in review process)

2026                     Como indios nos ha dominado, como indios nos vamos a liberar: Ontologías y epistemologías indígenas en los Andes. Lausanne: Peter Lang Verlag (in review process)

2018                     Consecuencias políticas de la migración interna en Bolivia. (Doctoral Thesis) Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert

2009                     Poder, masculinidad y jerarquía en la construcción identitaria del cadete: caso Colegio Militar del Ejército. (Bachelor’s Degree Thesis) La Paz: Universidad Mayor de San Andrés

– Articles in edited volumes and journals

2026                     Introducción. In: Carmen Ibáñez (ed): Como indios nos ha dominado, como indios nos vamos a liberar: Ontologías y epistemologías indígenas en los Andes. Lausanne: Peter Lang Verlag, pp. 1-20 (in review process)

2026                     Entre el aborto y la maternidad: El cuerpo indígena como territorio político. In: Carmen Ibáñez (ed): Como indios nos ha dominado, como indios nos vamos a liberar: Ontologías y epistemologías indígenas en los Andes. Lausanne: Peter Lang Verlag. (in review process)

2025                     Insurgent Temporalities: coloniality of time and epistemic justice in the Andes. Theorising Temporalities, Special Issue for Anthropological Theory. (in review process)

2025                     Antropología crítica del tiempo internacional. In: Raúl Salgado, I. Vallejo, Betty Espinoza (eds.): Aristas del pensamiento político internacional latinoamericano del siglo XXI. Quito: Serie FORO/FLACSO (in print )

2024                     Nociones temporales y sociedades colonizadas. In: Bernd Hausberger (ed.): Temporalities of Future.Lo colonial, lo posible y lo político. Ciudad de México: El Colegio de México, pp. 29-52.

2019                     La migración como estrategia política de resistencia. In: Santiago Bastos (ed.): La etnicidad recreada. Desigualdad, diferencia y movilidad en la América Latina global. Guadalajara: CIESAS, pp. 387-418.

2018                     El cuerpo como evidencia: etnicidad y género en los Andes. In: FIAR. Journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies, Vol. 10 (2), pp. 66-84.

2017                     Politisierung von Indigenität in Bolivien. In: Jochen Kemner (ed.): Indigenitätsmappe: El mundo al revés: Pueblos Indígenas en América Latina. Unterrichtsmaterialienreihe "Wissen um globale Verflechtungen". Bielefeld: Kipu.

2017                     Where is the development? Challenging the concept of development from the perspective of Buen Vivir. In: Lukas Rehm, J. Kemner, O. Kaltmeier (eds.): Politics of Entanglements in the Americas: Connecting Transnational Flows and Local Perspectives. Inter-American Studies/ Estudios Interamericanos Vol. 19. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag/ Bilingual Press S. 187-199

2017                     Reproduktion indigener Stereotypen in Bolivien. In: Rebeca Steger Rebeca et al. (eds.): Subalternativen. Postkoloniale Kritik und dekolonialer Widerstand in Lateinamerika. Münster: Edition Assemblage, pp. 125-138.

2017                     La migración interna en la construcción de la identidad nacional. In: Antonio Saez-Arance et al. (eds.): Identidades nacionales en América Latina. Discursos, saberes y representaciones. Stuttgart: Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz/Academischer Verlag Stuttgart, pp. 241-251.

2016                     Negociaciones de etnicidad y ciudadanía: Ayllu vs. Sindicato. Research Network for Latin America Working Paper, Series No. 16.

2015                     Diversidad y heterogeneidad, pero ante todo migrantes. In: Barbara Potthast et al. (eds.), Dinámicas de inclusión y exclusión en América Latina. Conceptos y prácticas de etnicidad, ciudadanía y pertenencia. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, pp. 203-216.        

– Other Contributions

2024                    “Rassimuskritischer Veränderungsprozess”, Panelist, 11th National Conference of  Multiplicators and promotors of international cooperation, Berlin

2024                     Introduction. In: “Overcoming racism together”, special edition, Neuwied: Eirene e.V./Caritas.

2022                     "Las nociones temporales del colonizado". In: Columnas del Futuro, The New School College, New York (https://2084futurosimaginados.org/columna/las-nociones-temporales-del-colonizado).          

2021                     "Consecuencias políticas de la migración interna". In: El Canto del Tordo. Nº5, El Alto: SJM.

2020                     "El significado de la migración interna para los cambios políticos en Bolivia". In: Matices. Zeitschrift zu Lateinamerika, Spanien und Portugal, No. 101.

2020                     "Coronavirus in Zeiten des Pachakutik". In: Bulletin Eirene e.V.

2020                     "Viviendo como las sardinas". Newspaper El País (Bolivia).

2020                     "Was es bedeutet, „der Andere“ zu sein". In: Bulletin Eirene e.V.

2020                     "El amor en tiempos de coronavirus". Newspaper El País (Bolivia).

2018                     Interview with Bolivian feminist Maria Galindo of Mujeres Creando. With Britt Weyde. In: ILA, Zeitschrift der Informationsstelle Lateinamerika, No. 417, Bonn.

2015                     Movimientos sociales en Bolivia. In: Lobato Mirta, Barbara Potthast, Johanna Below, Débora Bendocchi, Carmen Ibáñez, Bea Wittger et al. (eds.): Soziale Bewegungen in Lateinamerika. Kollektive Aktionen testen die Grenzen der Macht. Exposition catalog, Research Network for Latin America.           

2014                     "Frau sein in Deutschland. Eine Betrachtung aus lateinamerikanischer Perspektive". In: ILA, Zeitschrift der Informationsstelle Lateinamerika, Bonn, Nº 380 (11).

2009                     "Bolivien und Venezuela: ein Vergleich". With Jesús Azcargorta. In: Politikum, Studentische Zeitung für Politik und Gesellschaft. Nº 1.

2008                      "Bolivia: país de conflictos". In: Matices. Zeitschrift zu Lateinamerika, Spanien und Portugal, No. 59 (4).