Academic Group

Laura Raquel Valladares De la Cruz is a Professor in Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), Iztapalapa Campus since 2001. Member of the National System of Researchers (SNI). She has been Head of the Department of Anthropology since 2018.

Her research topics focus on three main themes: Indigenous movements and organizations in Mexico, an interest that she has maintained for more than three decades and that has led her to study topics such as forms of organization, resistance, and strategies of the struggle of indigenous peoples in Mexico in defense of their collective rights as indigenous peoples and their access to justice. In this last topic, she has analyzed its impact on indigenous organizations and its role in the construction of political platforms of various organizations.

Another topic of reflection and research has been the organizational and vindicative process of indigenous women and youth in different ethnic groups in the country. She has conducted research on the human rights situation of indigenous women in indigenous communities in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Veracruz, Michoacán, and the State of Mexico. On this topic, she coordinated the First National Consultation on the situation of indigenous women's rights in their peoples and communities of origin, undertaken by the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) in 2011 and 2012.

A third line of interest has focused on the analysis of multicultural and postmulticultural policies implemented in Mexico from the 1990s to the present, from the perspective of Legal Anthropology and Anthropology of the State. Within this framework, he has studied the impacts of the implementation of mining megaprojects in indigenous territories and the forms of resistance that indigenous peoples have deployed in defense of their lands and territories, especially on the novel forms of struggle and theorization of indigenous women, from what has been called indigenous feminisms from Abya Yala.

Within the framework of the exercise of rights of indigenous peoples and affirmative policies, she has conducted various investigations related to electoral disputes led by indigenous populations, as well as the impact and challenges of compliance with affirmative or compensatory electoral quotas for indigenous women.

On this topic, during the first months of the year 2021, she coordinated the research on "Culture and forms of election in the municipalities and indigenous electoral districts of the state of Guerrero, research resulting from the Collaboration Agreement between the Electoral and Citizen Participation Institute (IEPC) of the State of Guerrero and the Department of Anthropology of the UAM Iztapalapa Campus.

Her current project deals with women's political rights and participation in the autonomous municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, in the state of Guerrero. It is a collaborative research project with the authorities and women appointed as representatives of the Community Government of Ayutla de los Libres.

She is part of the Coordinating Group of the UAM Research Network on Violence.

She was President of the Latin American Network of Legal Anthropology, Mexico Section (2010). President of the College of Ethnologists and Social Anthropologists AC (CEAS) (2010-2012). Executive Secretary of the Mexican Network of Anthropology Training Institutions (REDMIFA) (2015), Coordinator of the Bachelor's Degree in Social Anthropology, Iztapalapa Campus (2010-2015). Head of the Department of Anthropology, Iztapalapa Campus (2018-).