Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo

Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo (CIESAS, Mexico , D.F.) is an anthropologist and activist who lived for fifteen years in Chiapas. She earned her doctorate in anthropology from Stanford University. She currently works under the auspices of CIESAS, the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology. One of her projects involves exploring new and old opportunities for power through indigenous women, collective organization, and daily resistance by analyzing the comparative histories of indigenous women's initiatives in Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Veracruz. She has worked extensively in the past on exploring plural identities in Chiapas as well as the human rights of Guatemalan refugees in Mexico. Hernandez Castillo lectured at the University of London Instititute of Latin American Studies on "Indigenous Law and Identity Politics in Mexico: Women's Struggles in a Multicultural Nation" and "Indigenous Cosmovision as an Element of Resistance in the Struggles of Indigenous Women in Mesoamerica." She is also on the Humanities Awards Commission for the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias. Her publications include: El Estado y los indígenas en tiempos del PAN: neoindigenismo, identidad y legalidad (2004), Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: the Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion (2003); and The Other Word: Women and Violence in Chiapas Before and After Acteal (2001).