Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology – Mexico

Carlos Macías, General Director

CIESAS, a cutting-edge institution

The Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) is a well-established public research center with international standing. Throughout its 48 years of existence, it has positioned itself as one of the leading institutions in the social sciences and humanities in Mexico and Latin America. Its prestige stems from the quality and relevance of its research, as well as its programs for training outstanding human resources.

History

CIESAS is a public research center created in 1973 by three of the most prominent anthropologists to have worked in Mexico: Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, and Ángel Palerm Vich. It was originally founded as the Center for Social Research of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (CISINAH). In 1980, it changed its name to CIESAS.

It has geographic coverage in different regions of the country, where its seven regional offices are located. These offices are: the Mexico City Unit, located in the capital of Mexico; the Gulf Unit, located in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz; the South Pacific Unit, located in the city of Oaxaca, Oaxaca; the Western Unit, with its headquarters in Guadalajara, Jalisco; the Southeast Unit, whose facilities are located in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas; the Peninsular Unit, in the city of Mérida, Yucatán; and the Northeast Unit, whose offices are located in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León. Together, these seven offices contribute to the generation of cutting-edge knowledge directly related to development challenges at the local, national, and international levels.

Research

CIESAS is distinguished by its rigorous, cutting-edge research. It develops basic and applied research that stands out for its transdisciplinarity and relevance. This involves collaborative scientific efforts, deployed across a variety of research lines, namely:

1. Policies, environment and society

2. Anthropology, social and economic history, and globalization

3. Historical and contemporary educational processes, policies and actors

4. Legal Anthropology and Political Studies: Power, Democracy, Violence and Gender

5. Medical Anthropology

6. Migration Studies

7. Urban Studies

8. Indigenous Peoples and Languages, Past and Present

9. Cultural Studies

10 History

11. Emerging Anthropologies

12. Mesoamerica and its cultural complexity in the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods

Academic staff

CIESAS boasts a highly qualified faculty. This faculty comprises 182 professors/researchers, 95% of whom hold doctoral degrees. 75% belong to the National System of Researchers (SNI), and of these, 26 are at Level III and three are emeritus. 26% are members of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, our faculty participates in 180 national and international academic networks.

Teaching (human capital development)

CIESAS is committed to developing highly skilled professionals. Combined with its research initiatives, its curricula are relevant to current development challenges. Therefore, CIESAS's academic programs equip students to conduct relevant research in response to major national issues.

The CIESAS National Training System comprises 11 academic programs: six master's and five doctoral. All of these programs are recognized by the National Registry of Quality Graduate Programs (PNPC) of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt). Six of them are internationally recognized.

1. PhD in Anthropology (CDMX)

2. Doctorate in Social Sciences (Western Region)

3. PhD in History (Peninsular)

4. PhD in Indigenous Linguistics (Mexico City)

5. PhD in Social Anthropology (Southeast)

6. Master's Degree in Social Anthropology (CDMX)

7. Master's Degree in Social Anthropology (Southeast-Northeast)

8. Master's Degree in Indigenous Linguistics (Mexico City)

9. Master's Degree in Social Anthropology (Gulf)

10. Master's Degree in History (Peninsular)

11. Master's Degree in Social Anthropology (South Pacific)

CIESAS, collaborative frontier research

Institutional Chairs

Our institution has 11 endowed chairs dedicated to promoting research. Each chair prioritizes the training of professionals in the fields championed by the academics after whom the chairs are named. CIESAS's endowed chairs have successfully fostered collaborative efforts among the various academic institutions that participate in them. Our endowed chairs are: Angel Palerm, Arturo Warman, Élisée Reclus, Friedrich Katz, Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, Guillermo de la Peña, Jan de Vos, Jorge Alonso, Marcela Lagarde, Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira, and the UNESCO Chair focused on Afro-descendants.

Special programs, laboratories and observatories

CIESAS's special programs are programs that integrate teaching, research, and outreach with various sectors. These programs operate around a research agenda that brings together different specific projects. The special programs currently in operation are as follows:

Special Program of Geographic Information Systems for Social Sciences and Humanities (PROSIG)

This is a program focused on geographic research and analysis. It addresses the need for in-depth field research supported by technologies and methodologies applicable to geostatistics and social geomatics.

Digital Collection of Indigenous Languages (ADLI)

The ADLI is a long-term effort with a history spanning more than three decades. This program is based on the idea of a linguistic "tequio" (a collective effort) in support of linguistic and cultural diversity as a collective exercise of linguistic rights. This is made possible through specific practices that reclaim original aesthetics, such as verbal and iconographic art, for the production of materials with linguistic and cultural relevance and belonging, from a collaborative and multimodal approach to linguistic (re)vitalization.

Language and Culture Laboratory (LLC)

The LLC works to conserve and safeguard Mexico's linguistic and cultural heritage. Through the integration of corpora for linguistic and semiotic research, it fosters innovation in the development of educational materials aimed at teaching and revaluing cultural and linguistic diversity. The creation of this laboratory responds to the need for both research and the preservation and dissemination of the country's linguistic and cultural heritage, which has been undervalued and neglected until now.

Citizen – Construction and articulation of the public

CCiudadano was founded in 2007 with the aim of promoting and strengthening the work of citizen organizations and groups operating at the local and community levels. CCiudadano's guiding principle is to be a resource available to citizen groups and organizations, as well as public institutions, so that they can work together to solve public problems, based on the needs and interests of the various communities or groups affected by government action.

Nanginá Intercultural Research and Services Office (GISI)

CIESAS has professors and researchers with experience in indigenous and intercultural rights. Historically, it has collaborated with state institutions and indigenous communities to conduct research, human resource development, and anthropological assessments, among other activities related to these issues. This is how Nanginá ('our land' in Mazatec) was created, with the purpose of training and certifying specialists in linguistics, anthropology, and law to provide these services and, at the same time, advance the process of registering, studying, and revitalizing indigenous languages in Mexico.

Postgraduate Scholarship Program for Indigenous People (PROBEPI)

PROBEPI is a special program supported by CONACYT. Through this program, CIESAS promotes the individual and collective development of Indigenous women who participate in an academic training program tailored to these vulnerable groups. Graduates of this program become outstanding professionals in their respective fields and agents of change who promote equity and development in their regions.

CIDIGLO (The Consortium for Research and Dialogue on Local Government)

CIDIGLO began in 2015 as a project supported by CONACYT. This program arose from a joint effort between CONACYT and the government of the State of Jalisco. CIDIGLO focuses on developing applied research to strengthen the capacities of local governments. These capacities have become drivers of regional sustainability and the institutional strengthening of local governments, including their economic development, agricultural productivity, technological innovation, and socio-environmental sustainability. Currently, CIDIGLO is in a transition phase, ceasing to be a consortium and becoming a research unit of CIESAS.

MIA – Independent Measurement of Learning

MIA is an action-research project. It is a collaborative project between CIESAS (Gulf Unit) and the Institute of Educational Research at the University of Veracruz (IIE-UV). This project allows for independent assessment of whether children and young people in Mexico have the minimum learning skills necessary to continue learning; that is, whether they can read and perform basic mathematical operations.

Ethnographic Observatory of Violence (OEV)

The OEV is a space for the production of social knowledge about violence and serious human rights violations. It is based on collaborative research with various actors involved in the fields of justice, victim reparations, case documentation, and the analysis of violence patterns.

CIESAS, scientific communication and institutional collections

Publications

CIESAS is exceptionally prolific and original. Its publishing catalog comprises over a thousand titles published throughout its institutional history. Some are considered classics of anthropology, while others are true benchmarks of cutting-edge research in the social sciences and humanities. Our Casa Chata imprint emerged in 2005 as a result of outstanding research. Other notable collections include: Biblioteca del Agua (Water Library), Clásicos y Contemporáneos en Antropología (Classics and Contemporary Works in Anthropology), Colección Huasteca (Huasteca Collection), Colección Peninsular (Peninsular Collection), Colección CIESAS Occidente (CIESAS Western Collection), and Historia de los pueblos indígenas de México (History of the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico).

CIESAS also has periodical publications, such as the magazines Desacatos, Encartes and Ichan Tecolotl.

Desacatos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales is a pluralistic and interdisciplinary publication that disseminates research advances and findings in anthropology, history, linguistics, and related social sciences such as geography, sociology, and political science. Three issues are published per year, on a quarterly basis.

Encartes is a multimedia digital journal in the social sciences, produced in collaboration with El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (El Colef), the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), and CIESAS. It is published twice a year and aims to disseminate research findings in various audiovisual and multimedia formats.

Ichan Tecolotl originated with CIESAS as its informational organ. Currently, it is a monthly online journal that brings together the voices of the CIESAS community as well as other voices that enrich the anthropological dialogue.

Library

CIESAS has a library system comprised of seven specialized libraries. These specializations include Anthropology, History, Linguistics, and Social Sciences in general, housing a bibliographic and audiovisual collection of over 313,997 volumes, as well as a significant periodical collection of 160,275 issues of specialized journals. It contains one of the most important Latin American collections in the social sciences and humanities, particularly in anthropology, demography, urban development, history, linguistics, Hispanic literature, politics, sociology, and gender studies.