Hector Miguel Callejas

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Hector is a scholar of colonialism, Indigeneity, and the environment, with a focus on social movements in the Americas. He uses ethnography, archival research, and theory to examine the production and governance of Indigenous identities and environments, and their effects on colonial power relations in modern societies. His interdisciplinary and engaged research covers ethnic studies (Native American and Indigenous studies; Latinx studies), anthropology (political, legal, environmental, and public anthropologies), and area studies (Latin American studies; Central American studies; American studies). He has two research areas: transnational Indigenous activism in El Salvador and environmental justice activism in California.

INDIGENIZING INDIANS:
RACE, CLASS, ETHNICITY, AND NATION IN EL SALVADOR

The “Indians” constitute the bottom social stratum of the Salvadoran racialized class structure. Hector's current project examines how the Salvadoran Indigenous movement reproduced international discourses of Indigenous “ethnicity” and “nationhood” during the 2010s to shape state recognition, governance, and development of the Indians as “Indigenous peoples.” The project draws on fifteen months of ethnography and archival research in the capital city of San Salvador; the municipalities of Izalco and Nahuizalco; and Mexico City (2019-2020). It traces the discourses, projects, processes, practices, and effects of Indigenous subject formation between state, Indigenous, international, and other actors during the national FMLN and Bukele administrations.

The project contributes to interdisciplinary debates on settler colonialism, Indigeneity, and decoloniality between political and legal anthropology; Latin American studies; and Native American and Indigenous studies. Indigenous movement scholarship theorizes resistance and decolonization from the experiences and perspectives of Indigenous ethnic groups and/or nations. The project shows how movement actors in El Salvador articulated ethnic and national discourses of Indigeneity to create and exercise a new multicultural regime of settler state power. It argues that the regime reinforced the structural condition of Indian poverty within Salvadoran society. By centering the social stratification of race and class in its analysis of Indigenous politics, the project presents an original framework for understanding why Indigenous movements fail to resist national multiculturalism and decolonize modern states and societies.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ACTIVISM IN CALIFORNIA

Hector's next project builds on an important thread in his current project: the relationship between Indigeneity and the environment. It follows the transnational circulation of Indigenous identities and cultures across the U.S.-Mexico border and examines their articulation with environmental discourses in the context of U.S. settler colonialism. The project focuses on environmental justice activism in the Sacramento Valley of California. The region is home to federally recognized California Indian tribes and a large migrant population from Latin America, including Central Americans and Indigenous peoples. State institutions, non-profit organizations, tribal governments, community leaders, and other actors are transforming "environmental justice" into an important discourse for activism, policymaking, and governance. The next project uses ethnography and archival research to examine how the discourse intersects with race relations and decolonial projects in the region and beyond. It contributes to Native American and Indigenous studies, Latinx studies, American studies, and environmental anthropology, among others.

2023-24 Courses

• Indigeneity
  ANTHRO 345W (Aut)
• Prior Year Courses

  2022-23 Courses

  • Race, Indigeneity, and Cultural Heritage in Latin America
    ANTHRO 29A, ARCHLGY 29A, CHILATST 129, CSRE 129A (Spr)