Alejandro Castillejo-Cuéllar

Post-doctoral Fellow in Legal Cultures, Humboldt University School of Law, Berlin, Germany, 2011-2012.

Ph.D. in Anthropology, New School for Social Research, Department of Anthropology, New York City, 1999-2006. Doctoral Committee: Veena Das, Deborah Poole (p), Harry West (Founded by: List Holocaust Memorial, Dean’s Scholarship, Ruth Westheimer, Wenner-Gren foundation for Anthropological Research)

Master in Anthropology, New School for Social Research, Department of Anthropology, New York City, 2001.

Master in Peace and Conflict Studies, European University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Staadtschlaining, Austria, 1999.

Certificate in Peace and Development. Universidad Jaume I, Castello de la Palma, Spain, fall 1996.

Anthropologist, Faculty of Human Science, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, 1994. 

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia (2004-present).

Co-Investigator, “Can Arts Save Human Rights”, Arts and Humanities Research Council/ University of York, UK (2021-2025).

Director, Department of Anthropology, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. (2013-2014)

Program Director, Graduate Program in Anthropology (M.A and PhD), Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, 2007.

Chief-Editor Antípoda: Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology (second series), Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, 2004-2006.

Congress of the Republic of Colombia awarded one of the highest distinctions of the Land, the “Orden del Congreso en Grado de Comendador” to the Commissioners of Colombia’s Truth Commission, July 13, 2023.

Gernika Award for Peace and Reconciliation. Gernika Gogoratuz (Remembering Gernika), Center for Peace Research, Gernika Gogoratuz Foundation for work of Colombia’s Truth Commission.

Commissioner, Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and non-Repetition (Truth Commission), Colombia, 2019-2022.

Honorary Member, Association of Detained and Disappeared, ASFADES since 2010. 

Global Visiting Fellow. Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy, King’s College of London, July-December 2023.

Andrew Mellon Foundation Distinguished Visiting Scholar, University of Western Cape, Center for Humanities Research, South Africa, summer 2014. 

Rechtskulturen Inaugural Fellow, WissenschaftsKolleg zu Berlin [Institute of Advanced Study], Berlin, 2011-2012.

British Academy Latin American and Caribbean Visiting Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, summer 2006. 

Visiting Research Fellow, Direct Action Center for Peace and Memory, Cape Town, South Africa (2003-2004)

Visiting Scholar, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Cape Town, South Africa (2002).

Research Fellow, Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 2001-2003.

International and National Awards

2023. Social Sciences Alejandro Ángel Escobar Foundation Award, for the book, sound platform, and itinerant pedagogy When Birds did not Sing: Stories of Colombia´s Armed Conflict, Testimonial Volume of the Commission for the Clarification of Truth Final Report, Colombia (National Competition)

2014. Guillermo Hoyos Award on Peace Processes and Democratic Perspectives in Colombia, for the essay The Social Imagination of the Future: Towards a truth Commission in Colombia, Latin American Council of Social Science (CLACSO), Buenos Aires, Argentina (International Competition)

2010. Social Sciences Alejandro Ángel Escobar Foundation Award, for the book The Archives of pain: Essays on Violence and Remembering in Contemporary South Africa. Colombia (National Competition)

2006. Stanley Diamond Memorial Award in the Social Sciences to the best Doctoral Dissertation, New School for Social Research, New York, 2006 (International Competition)

Founder, Sound Explorations and Listening Laboratory, Faculty of Social Science, Universidad de los Andes (2023-presente)

Director, Critical Studies Program on Political Transitions, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia (2009-present)

Director, Interdisciplinary Committee for the Study of Violence, Subjectivity and Culture. Founder/director. Top Tier A1, Colombian Institute for the Development of Science (Colciencias) 2004-present

Collective Memories and Resistance Practices (member), Latin American Council for Social Research, CLACSO (2019-present)

After the Traces of the Invisible is simultaneously a sound installation (Sacred Silences) based on recording of mass graves in Colombia and my ethnographic work for book The Ineffable Listening. Integrated, they are both a written and sonic exploration of the link between forest-spirits and their testimonies of war in the Colombian Amazon and the Sierra Nevada and the specters of the disappeared. Commissioned by the Center for Memory, Peace, and Reconciliation of Bogotá.  (in process)

Murmullos, o la herida de la naturaleza [Murmurs, or the pain of nature] Instalación Sonora co-producida con Andrés Torres, 2022.

Alucinaciones e Itinerarios: Fragmentos Poéticos y Cuaderno de Notas. [Hallucinations and Itineraries: poetic fragments and Fieldntes], 2024.  

American Anthropologist, USA

Cultural Anthropology, USA

Institutions

Ibero-American Bank of Peer Reviewers, CONACYT, México (2017-present)

Social Science Research Council, Canada (2008-present)

Colombian Institute for the Development of Science and Technology, Colombia (2007-present)

Keynote Speaker. Contemporary Reflections on Person and Society: Human Rights Seminar. “Between Remembrance and Forgetfulness”, Mexican Supreme Court of Justice, August 20, 2024

Keynote Speaker. Organized by Latin America Studies Association (LASA), Accra (Ghana), November 16, 2023

Keynote Speaker, 6th Global Conference on Genocide: Genocide and Mass Violence: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Recovery organized by the International Network of Genocide Scholars, School of Medicine, Aix-Marseille Université de Marseille (France) July 4, 2018. 

Panel Chair, Peace and Beyond International Conference commemorating the Good Friday Accords, British Council, Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster University, Belfast, April 10-12, 2019.

Joshua Rosenthal Fund Lecture, Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, September 17, 2014.

Keynote speaker, Universidad Autónoma de México (Campus de Xochimilco). Departments of History and Psychology, 24 de September del 2014, México City.

Supreme Court of Justice, Mexico. Seminar: Four Conversations on Memory, Testimony and Sound. Office of human Rights, August 22-23, Instituto de Investigaciones Juríricas, UNAM, 2024

University of Bayreuth, Seminar: Violence and Society, African Studies Program Summer School, Germany, summer 2018

Zayed University, Seminar: Globalization, Faculty of Social Science and International Relations, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2008-2009.

International Ph.D. Programmme on Literary and Cultural Studies, Giessen Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, Justus-Liebig Universität Giessen, Giessen, Germany, November 2008.

School of Oriental and African Studies, Department of Anthropology, summer school, London, 2007

Latin American Council for Social Research, CLACSO, 2019 and 2020.

Zautla Peasant and Indigenous People’s University/Iberoamerican University/Universidad Claustro de Sor Juana Inés/Periodistas de A pie México, june, 2018)

In Colombia (graduate and undergraduate programs): Universidad del Cauca, Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira, Universidad de Antioquia, Universidad del Valle, Universidad de Caldas.

Convenor, Inter-institutional Consortium aimed at assisting in the location and identification of forcefully disappeared people in Colombia. Critical Studies Program on Political Transitions (Universidad de los Andes), Nacional Institute of Legal Medicine, Asociación de Familiares de Detenidos de Desaparecidos.      

Chief-Rapporteur on behalf of Colombia’s forcefully disappeared victim’s organizations to the Havana peace process, July 2014.  

Consultant, International Organization for Migration, Colombia, 2016 

Expert-Witness on Historical Memory, National Public Prosecutor’s Office, Peace and Justice Process Law proceedings against Meta and Vichada Self-Defense organizations or paramilitaries, 2010-2011.   

Consultant Colombian National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation, Historical Memory Group. Project: At the Juncture between Law and History: An Ethnographic Reading of Judicial Scenarios in the Context of Testimonies Rendered by Former Paramilitaries in Colombia 2010-2012.

Government of Denmark, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Commissioned to report on the public hearing on “Forced Displacement and political Violence” at the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. On behalf of the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation, Lima, Peru. December 2002. 

Co-Investigator, Narratives of The Future. Part of the interinstitutional project:  Can Arts save Human Rights? Human Rights Truth-Claims in a Post-Truth Era Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and in partnership with University of York (UK), Ben-Gurion University (Israel), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (UK), 2022-2025.

Co-Investigator, Reimagining the University: Enhancing the Role of Universities in Conflict and Crisis. Funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund, Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), and in partnership with University of York (UK), University of Sarajevo (Bosnia), University of Rwanda (Rwanda), Makerere University (Uganda), University of Western Cape (South Africa), University of Chan Mai (Thailand), 2023-2027

Co-Investigator, Disappearances: a study of a category to inhabit and analyze social catastrophe and lose. Funded by Ministry of Communications, Spain. Universidad del País Vasco, University of California-Santa Bárbara (U.S.A), Universidad de Coímbra (Portugal), Tecnológico de Monterrey (México), Universidad de los de Andes (Colombia), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (France), Universität Konstanz (Germany), 2016-2019

Project director, Territorial Narratives of Survival. Part of the project Local Organizational empowerment for reincorporation of former combatants. Critical Studies Program on Political Transitions, Universidad de los Andes Funded by European Union Fund for Peace in Colombia (2020-2021)

Co-Investigator, Arts of Dwelling and Survival in Colombia part of ‘Building Inclusive Civil Societies with, and for, Young People in 5 Post-Conflict Countries.’ Co-investigator. Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2017-2019).

Project director, Contributions to the search, identification, location of forcibly disappeared persons and those presumed to be missing from the department of Meta. Critical Studies Program on Political Transitions, Universidad de los Andes and Fundación para los Derechos Humanos. Funded by: United Nations Development Fund & German Cooperation Agency, 2014-2016.

Principal Investigator, Suicide among University Students Bogotá, 2002-2012]. Universidad de los Andes (Department of Anthropology), Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Doctoral Program in Public Health), Universidad Javeriana (Department of Political Science), Universidad Santo Tomás, Colombia, 2013 al 2015.