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Alejandro Cerón

Physician, Master in Public Health, Master in Anthropology

maceron@uw.edu

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"As many in my generation, I embraced the dreams of radical social change envisioned by Latin American revolutionaries, but I was still young when they failed in my country, Guatemala. As a Mestizo who grew up in a working class neighborhood in Guatemala City, I did not experience the massacres in rural villages or the genocide directed toward Mayan people. Nevertheless, the history of violence and social exclusion that has characterized my country is a part of who I am. I am committed to the collective imagining of a society with no exclusion and to working toward its realization. I believe that the combination of applied work in public health and academic work in anthropology can help me fulfill that commitment."

Research Interests:
Health inequalities in pluralistic medical systems, health as human right, anthropology of pharmaceuticals, socio-cultural epidemiology; social stratification in Guatemala, Latin American immigrants in the US. K'iche' language and culture.

Theoretical approaches:
Critical medical anthropology, Science and medicine studies, Critical ethnographies

Dissertation project provisional title:
Epidemiology and the everyday life of the right to health in post-war Guatemala.

Alejandro with a family, Bocacosta, Guatemala

Last updated: August 23rd, 2011