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Oakes Faculty Fellows

The Oakes College faculty represents a wealth of expertise from the natural sciences to the humanities, and we are proud to have some of the top scholars in the world among our faculty. Our students major in nearly every discipline at UCSC—from economics and computer science, to theater arts and Latin American and Latino studies—and they are well supported by the depth and breadth of the Oakes College faculty and the extensive knowledge of our advising team.

TBA is Oakes's faculty chair!

The Chair of the Faculty is an Academic Senate member, other than the Provost, who is elected by the college Faculty to serve a two year term, and will serve as a member of the Executive Committee.

 

Fernando I Leiva
  • Title
    • Professor
  • Division Social Sciences Division
  • Department
    • Latin American & Latino Studies
  • Affiliations Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas, Merrill College
  • Phone
    831-459-5897
  • Email
  • Fax
    831-459-3125
  • Website
  • Office Location
    • Merrill College Academic Building, 30
    • Merrill Academic, room 30
  • Office Hours Spring 2024 - Friday. 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM.
  • Mail Stop Merrill/Crown Faculty Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High St.
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise Globalization, Labor and Social Movements, Latin American and Latino Studies, Political Economy of Development
  • Courses LALS 200-A Power and Society; LALS 245 Epistemologies of the South; LALS 258 Critical Cultural Political Economy; LALS 94-X Mother Nature, Capitalism, and Crises; LALS 158 Latin American Political Economy; LALS 126 Digit@l Americ@s/Digit@l Latin@S; LALS 194-X Socio-Environmental Conflicts in the Americas; LALS1 Intro to Latin American and Latino Studies
  • Advisees, Grad Students, Researchers Boyeong Kim, Alejandra Watanabe Farro

Summary of Expertise

Socio-environmental conflicts; Economic elites, the state, and political domination; Political economy; Latin American Development; Social Movements; Labor flexibility; Post-neoliberalism. 

Research Interests

I am currently working on two projects: The first is a book manuscript - Mythmaking Eco-Extractivism: Material-Semiotic Foundations of its Imaginaries and Political Technologies -- that applies a a systemic, strategic relational, critical cultural political economy approach to study how new capitalist hegemonic project centered on "green extractivism" arises and territorializes its operations. The second is a much delayed analysis of the forms of Latin American rentier capitalism and its state and non-state political forms. 

Biography, Education and Training

Born in Santiago, Chile, I am a transnational Chilean. 
PhD in Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
MA in Economics, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
BA in Economics, American University (Washington D.C).

Selected Publications

Books

Peer Reviewed Articles

Book Chapters

Work in Progress

  • "Mythmaking Eco-Extractivism: Materio-Semiotic Foundations of the Imaginaries and Political Technologies of "Decarbonization by Dispossession" 
  • “Neo-Ordoliberalism and the Left. Prospects for Strengthening Democracy and Overcoming the Contemporary Crises of Latin American Capitalism"
  • “Chile and the Contemporary Power of Capital: Peripheral Predatory Rentier Capitalism and the Political Practices of Business Elites”

Selected Recordings

Documentary: "The Mapuche and the Myth of Chile" Al Jazeera, The Big Picture Series, Directed by Sanjiev Sohal

Teaching Interests

Latin American political economy, Critical cultural political economy, Contemporary socio-environmental conflicts.