Education:

Since 08/2023	PhD Candidate in Social Science (Sociology), El Colegio de México, Mexico.
08/2021 – 07/2023	Master in Social Science (Sociology), El Colegio de México, Mexico.
01/2013 – 05/2019	Bachelor in Sociology, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Guatemala.
01/2012 – 12/2015	Secondary Education Teaching Diploma in Music, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Guatemala.

 

Work Experience:

Since 05/2026	Researcher, International Research Training Group ‘Temporalities of Future’.
01/2020 – 12/2020	Researcher, Centro Universitario del Sur (CUNSUR), Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Escuintla, Guatemala.

Project: 'The Configuration of Academic Work in Guatemala: Institutional Stratification and Professional Strategies in Public Higher Education'

This research examines how the trajectories of academics are shaped at the University of San Carlos of Guatemala, a public institution characterized by the centrality of teaching, the fragmentation of appointments into hourly contracts, the distinction between academic staff included in and excluded from the university career system, and the unequal distribution of resources and rights across academic units. The study seeks to explain how these institutional conditions, together with the disciplinary organization of academic work, affect opportunities for entry, permanence, mobility, and academic consolidation.

In contrast to approaches centered on the academic profession, research productivity, or disciplines understood as relatively autonomous systems, this research analyzes academic work through biographical trajectories. The analytical model brings together institutional closure and hierarchical position; the division of labor and disciplines as organizers of tasks, relationships, and resources; social capital as a mechanism of differential access to opportunities; and reflexive agency as the capacity to deliberate upon and reformulate projects.

Time constitutes a cross-cutting dimension of the research, since trajectories are assumed to be shaped by differentiated temporalities associated with the moment of entry, seniority, the duration and fragmentation of contracts, periods of waiting, the accumulation of relationships and experiences, and each person’s future horizons. These expressions of time may operate as resources, enablements, or constraints depending on individuals’ institutional and disciplinary positions.

Using a qualitative strategy that combines historical-institutional reconstruction with biographical interviews, the study compares the trajectories of academic staff in two disciplines: Biology and History. The research contributes to understanding the formation of academic trajectories in teaching-centered Latin American contexts, where merit and research productivity do not necessarily constitute the primary criteria for recognition and advancement.

Chapters

Gutiérrez, A. (en prensa). Pasado, presente y futuro en los estudios sobre el activismo estudiantil en Guatemala. En C. de J. Gómez Abarca et al. (Eds.), Crisis democrática y movimientos sociales en Centroamérica. CESMECA-UNICACH; CLACSO.

Articles (selection)

Gutiérrez, A. (2026). Los límites de la modernización: Elitismo, reforma y disputas por la educación superior pública en Guatemala (1958–1968). Tiempos de América, (23), 177–208. https://doi.org/10.6035/tiemposamrica.9218

Gutiérrez, A. (2020). Capital humano, competencias y el declive de la autonomía educativa; currículo y ciencias sociales. Política y Sociedad Egresad@s, (1), 5–18.

Gutiérrez, A. (2020). “La plaza” y la superchería académica (II). Análisis de la Realidad Nacional, 9(187), 108–131.

Gutiérrez, A. (2020). “La plaza” y la superchería académica (I). Análisis de la Realidad Nacional, 9(186), 89–112.

Gutiérrez, A. (2020). ¿La nueva crisis sociológica? Apuntes sobre la condición actual de la sociología. Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 7(2), 49–60. https://doi.org/10.36829/63CHS.v7i2.996

Gutiérrez, A. (2019). Tecnología, redes sociales y cambio social. Una aproximación desde el análisis socio-técnico. Política y Sociedad, (56), 53–70.

Gutiérrez, A. (2018). Universidad pública y reforma universitaria: El modelo educativo por competencias en la educación superior. Análisis de la Realidad Nacional, 7(143), 42–57.

Gutiérrez, A. (2017). La idea de género y su eclosión ontológica en el debate contemporáneo. Por una fusión de horizontes. Análisis de la Realidad Nacional, 6(21), 214–239.