Latin American Unit

David Aceituno Silva is Professor of History, Geography, and Social Sciences, PUCV (Chile). Master's in History, PUCV (Chile); PhD in Research on the Didactics of Social Sciences, University of Valladolid (Spain); and PhD in Contemporary and Latin American History, University of Salamanca (Spain). Faculty member at the Institute of History of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. His research focuses on Chile's Recent History, the transition from dictatorship to democracy, citizenship education, and digital citizenship. He has completed postdoctoral research stays at the Institute of Ibero-America of the University of Salamanca (Spain) and the University of Coimbra (Portugal), and has held fellowships from the Carolina Foundation and the Coimbra Group. His most recent books are "1984/1994. Encrucijadas en la Transición de la Dictadura a la democracia" and "Chile 1994/2006. De la democracia de los acuerdos a la muerte de Pinochet."

Ruy Farías is a Professor of Secondary and Higher Education in History from the University of Buenos Aires (with Honours Diploma) and PhD in History from the University of Santiago de Compostela (with Extraordinary Doctorate Award).

He is an independent researcher in the Laboratory for Research in Human Sciences of the CONICET (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research), lecturer in the Bachelor's Degree in History and Academic Director of the Galicia-America Chair (both belonging to the National University of San Martin, Argentina). He is also a member of the Institutional Relations and External Action Commission of the Galician Culture Council, collaborator of the Laboratory of Immigration Studies (University of Rio de Janeiro State) and of the Research Group on the History of Politics and Nationalism (HISPONA, USC).

Specialist in Spanish migration and exile in Argentina, looking at aspects ranging from macro-structural to micro-social factors, and from indicators of integration to collective imaginaries, representations, cultural exchanges, etc.

Author of more than 30 articles in specialized and popular journals, as well as two dozen chapters in collective volumes. He has compiled or organized the books Aires galega (2010) y – with Érica Sarmiento– Novos olhares sobre a imigração ibérica em América Latina (ss. XIX-XX), of 2013. He is also coauthor of Los “gallegos” en el imaginario argentino. Literatura, sainete, prensa (2008, coauthored with María Rosa Lojo y Marina Guidotti de Sánchez) and – again with Érica Samiento – of Entre os trópicos e o Rio da Prata. Estudos comparados de imigração galega no Rio de Janeiro e em Buenos Aires (2022). Moreover is the author of La inmigración gallega en el Sur del Gran Buenos Aries, 1869-1960 (2010).

Adolfo Garcé García y Santos (Montevideo, 1965) holds a PhD in Political Science from the Universidad de la República (Uruguay). He is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Universidad de la República and a Level II Researcher in Uruguay's National System of Researchers. He currently coordinates the PhD program in Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences and served as President of the Uruguayan Political Science Association (2014–2015). He has taught and conducted research at leading universities in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. In addition to numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, he is the author, co-author, or editor of around ten books, most of them on Uruguayan politics. His research focuses on the political power of ideas and on the relationship between expertise and politics.

Mariana Gené holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and a PhD in Political Sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. She is an Independent Researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and Full Professor at the School of Interdisciplinary High Social Studies (EIDAES) of the National University of San Martín (UNSAM). She also teaches in the Master’s Program in Social and Political Theory at the University of Buenos Aires. Since 2023 she has served as Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Papeles de Trabajo. Her research focuses on the sociology of political professions, state agencies, and political parties in contemporary Argentina. She is the author of La rosca política: el oficio de los armadores delante y detrás de escena (o el discreto encanto del toma y daca) (Siglo XXI, 2019) and co-author, with Gabriel Vommaro, of El sueño intacto de la centroderecha, y sus dilemas después de haber gobernado y fracasado (Siglo XXI, 2023). Together with Gabriel Vommaro, she also co-edited La vida social del mundo político (2017) and Élites políticas en el Sur (2018), both published by Ediciones UNGS.

Micaela Iturralde is a historian, researcher at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina), and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities of the National University of Mar del Plata (UNMdP). Her research focuses on the history of twentieth-century dictatorships, state repression, political violence, and transitions to democracy in the Ibero-American world. She specializes in the study of the last Argentine military dictatorship (1976–1983), the transnational circulation of information and human rights denunciations, and the role of the press, exile networks, and political actors in shaping public understandings of authoritarian rule. Her current research examines the connections between Argentina and Spain during the late Francoist period and the Spanish democratic transition, with particular attention to transnational networks, political exiles, and the circulation of information about authoritarian violence and human rights violations.

Mercedes Fernanda López Cantera (Buenos Aires, 1982) holds a PhD in History from the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, where she completed her studies and currently serves as a tenured professor. She trained as a researcher at the "Dr. Emilio Ravignani" Institute of Argentine and American History, and is a member of the Study Group on Twentieth-Century Argentine Social and Political History (GEHSPA) and of the Center for Historical Studies of Workers and the Left (CEHTI). She also belongs to the Network of Interdisciplinary Studies on the Right (REIDER). She is the author of Entre la reacción y la contrarrevolución. Orígenes del anticomunismo en Argentina (1917-1943) (Ediciones CEHTI–Imago Mundi, 2023). She is currently researching the development of anticommunist repression during Juan D. Perón's first two governments, as well as the development of anticommunist discourse among both Peronists and anti-Peronists.

Ignacio A. López Unzien holds a PhD in History from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and a Licentiate degree in Political Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. He is an Associate Researcher (Investigador Adjunto) of CONICET at the "Dr. Emilio Ravignani" Institute of Argentine and American History at the University of Buenos Aires. He has completed postdoctoral stays at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (USA) and the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium).

He is a full professor at the Universidad Católica Argentina and a visiting professor at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. He specializes in the political history of twentieth-century Argentina, with a focus on presidential history and the history of political parties, electoral processes, and electoral practices. He co-edited, with Miranda Lida, Un golpe decisivo. La dictadura de junio de 1943 y el lugar de Juan Domingo Perón (Edhasa, 2023), and is the author of La república del fraude y su crisis. Política y poder en tiempos de Roberto M. Ortiz y Ramón S. Castillo: Argentina 1938-1943(Prohistoria, 2018), as well as articles and book chapters on Argentine politics in the first half of the twentieth century.

He has received fellowships from the Truman Library Institute, the Fulbright Commission, Argentina's Ministry of Education and Sports, the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the Coimbra Group of European Universities, among others.

Marcos Novaro was born in Buenos Aires. He is a sociologist with a PhD in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, and serves as a principal researcher at CONICET. He currently directs the Center for Political Research (Cipol) and holds the chair of Contemporary Political Theory at UBA. He was a Fulbright scholar at George Washington University and Columbia University in 2006, and a Guggenheim fellow between 2008 and 2009. His research has focused on the democratization process and economic reforms in Argentina. Among his prominent books are Dinero y poder. Las difíciles relaciones entre empresarios y políticos en Argentina (Edhasa, 2019), Historia de la Argentina 1955-2020 (Siglo XXI, 2021), and ¿Por qué es tan difícil gobernar la Argentina? (FCE, 2024).