Miguel Montoya
PhD. Researcher
E-mail: miguel.montoya@rocketmail.com
Miguel is a researcher at the department. He is currently working on a project concerning the growth of civil society in Venezuela since Hugo Chávez was elected president. In 1996 Miguel defended his dissertation on the consequences of a large hydroelectric project on the peasant farmers in a relatively isolated area of the Venezuelan Andes. Thereafter he spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. Later research has focused on farmers who have occupied a forest reserve in the Venezuelan piedmont area, (The Tropical Forest as Frontier: Processes of Colonization and Smallholder Integration in Western Venezuela) individual investors in the Caracas stock market, (Models and Practices of Investment in the Venezuelan Stock Exchange) and the development of the FTAA (Transparency in Process: Creating the Free Trade Area of the Americas). His areas of interest are colonization and frontiers, markets, civil society and processes of democratization.
Research:
After Disaster: Local Response and Reconstruction in the Wake of Landslides in Vargas, Venezuela
This project deals with the period following the massive landslides that struck the Venezuelan costal state of Vargas in 1999, killing an estimated 20,000 people and leaving 150,000 homeless. It focuses on the strategies used by the people who remained in their communities to reconstruct their homes and rebuild their lives. I will examine the social and economic resources they mobilized in the reconstruction process, as well as their access to material and technical assistance from the government and other donors, and their relationships with different agencies. What resources were the most useful during reconstruction? What has been learned from the tragedy? How have communities and the built environment changed? In what ways have the areas affected in 1999 become more resilient in the event of further crises? Using ethnographic methods I will conduct a total of twelve months of fieldwork in two affected communities, interviewing government officials, politicians, NGOs and members of the communities. The main methods used will be in-depth interviews, focus groups and the collection of personal accounts. As the effects of global warming produce increasing numbers of disasters, many of them in the developing world where governmental aid efforts are insufficient, it is important to learn more about the strategies low-income communities use in reconstruction to maximize assistance and improve learning processes that can make vulnerable communities more resilient in the future.
Publications:
2007
‘Transparency as Weapon and Tool in Political Change: Venezuela’s presidential recall referendum.” In Christina Garsten and Monica Lindh de Montoya, eds. Transparency in a New Global Order: Unveiling Organizational Visions. Edwin Elgar.
2004
‘Between the Individual and the Community: Markets and Morals in Venezuelan Life.’ In Christina Garsten and Monica Lindh de Montoya, eds., Market Matters: Exploring Cultural Processes in the Global Market Place. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
2002
‘Emerging Markets, Globalization and the Small Investor: The Case of Venezuela.’ In Jeffrey H. Cohen and Norbert Dannhaeuser (eds), Economic Development: An Anthropological Approach. Society for Economic Anthropology Monograph Series #19. Walnut Creek, CA.: Altamira Press.
2001‘Negotiating the Tropical Forest: Colonizing Farmers and Lumber Resources in the Ticoporo Reserve.’ In Dawn Chatty and Marcus Colchester, eds. Conservation and Mobile Indigenous Peoples: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development. Studies in Forced Migration, No. 10. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
1999
Review of Death of the Peasantry, by Michael Kearney. Ethnos.
1996
Persistent Peasants: Smallholders, State Agencies and Involuntary Migration in Western Venezuela. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology. Distributed by Almqvist Wiksell International.
1993
‘At Odds: Farming Families, State Agencies, and the Conflict over Resources in a Venezuelan Frontier Region.’. In Gudrun Dahl, ed., Green Arguments and Local Subsistence. Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology. Distributed By Alquist Wiksell International.
Editor: Nicole Thorén
Source: Miguel Montoya
Updated: 01/21/10