Andrés Léon Araya

Phone:

(812) 855-4486

Email:

leonan@iu.edu

Department:

Department of International Studies

Campus:

IU Bloomington

Research Summary

Andrés León Araya (uses two last names) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies at Indiana University. Trained as both a political scientist and an anthropologist, his work looks at the intersections between plantation economies, violence and state formation. His latest book, “The Coup and the Palm Trees: Agrarian Conflict and Political Power in Honduras” (University of Georgia Press, 2023) interrogates the Honduran present through and exploration of the country’s spatiotemporal trajectory of agrarian change since the mid-twentieth century. Rather than a case of failed democratic transition, the book shows how the current Honduran crisis is better understood within longer historical processes in which violence, exclusion, and dispossession became the central organization principles of the state.

Currently, he is working on two parallel lines of inquiry. First, the overlaps between monocrops and drug trafficking in Central America. Second, the process of pacification of Central America and the continuities between the Cold War of the 1980s and the current “war on drugs”.

Educational Background

B.A. Political Science, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2006
M.Sc. Political Science, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2008
Ph.D., Anthropology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 2015

Regions of Interest

Central America

Research topics

Plantation economies
Violence
State formation
Security
Conjunctural Analysis

Representative Publications

“Monocrops,” The Journal of Peasant Studies, 50:3, 2023

“The fruits of labor or the fruits of nature? Value and the Latin American political ecologies.” In: B. Bustos, S. Engel, G. García, F. Milanez and D. Ojeda, (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the Environment and Latin America (Routledge), 2023.

With María José Guillén, “Geopolítica del extractivismo en Centroamérica” [The geopolitics of extractivism in Central America]. In: Román, Denia (editor). América Central en perspectiva ístmica: actualidad, historia y cuestionamientos sobre la región en su bicentenario (CLACSO), 2022.

“Costa Rica’s rush to the right.” NACLA, 2022: https://nacla.org/costa-ricas-rush-right-elections

“Agrarian conflict in the Bajo Aguán, Honduras”. Policy Matters, Special Issue 22:1, 2021.

“Agrarian extractivism and sustainable development: the politics of pineapple expansion in Costa Rica” In:  McKay, Ben, Alberto Alonso-Fradejas and Arturo Ezquerro-Cañete (eds.), Agrarian extractivism in Latin America (Routledge), 2021.

“El siglo XX de golpe en golpe: Formación de Estado y guerra permanente en Centroamérica” [The 20th Century one coup at the time: State formation and permanent war in Central America]. Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos, 47, 2021

“The politics of dispossession in the Honduran palm oil industry: A case study of the Bajo Aguán”.  Journal of Rural Studies, 71, 2019.

“Entre la fuga y la captura: conflicto agrario, desplazamiento y valor en el Bajo Aguán Honduras” [Between flight and capture: Agrarian conflict, displacement and value in the Bajo Aguán, Honduras]. In: Sierra, Francisco (ed.) Teoría del Valor, Comunicación y Territorio  (Siglo XXI Editores), 2019.

With Marc Edelman, “Cycles of land grabbing in Central America: An argument for history and case study in the Bajo Aguan, Honduras.” Third World Quarterly, 34: 9, 2013.