Rate My Professor Douglas Carranza

Douglas Carranza, Ph.D., serves as a Professor in the Department of Central American Studies at California State University, Northridge, a position he has held since joining the institution in 2001. He earned his Ph.D. in Social-Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Within the broader field of Social Science, Carranza's research focuses on cultural and political issues, particularly the rigors and conflicts of colonialism in the Central American region. His interdisciplinary research agenda explores concepts of space, citizenship, civil society, sovereignty, and modes of governing to address Indigenous movements and transnational communities in Central America and the United States. Carranza also serves as the Central American Studies Undergraduate Advisor.

In his teaching portfolio at CSUN, Carranza delivers courses on Central American diaspora and migration, contemporary revolutionary processes, modern historiography and identity formation, development, environment, and its human impact. His key publications include the co-edited book Introduction to Central American Studies with Beatriz Cortez (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, Dubuque, Iowa, 2008). Additional works encompass the book chapter "La Identidad Indigena: El discurso económico de la nación moderna sobre el espacio rural en El Salvador" in Estudios culturales centroamericanos en el nuevo milenio, edited by Marc Zimmerman and Gabriela Baeza Ventura (LACASA, Houston, Texas, 2007, pp. 176-187); the journal article "Asociaciones de origen: exclusión, violencia y las políticas de desarrollo" in Estudios Centroamericanos (ECA) (Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas”, San Salvador, El Salvador, 2009); "Las identidades poscampesinas en El Salvador" in Istmo 3 (2002); "Los indígenas y las identidades poscampesinas en El Salvador" in Cultura 86 (2002): 22-35; and "Sociedad Civil Expresión del Capitalismo y Colonialismo: La Dominación del Otro" in La Cultura Omitida, a publication of the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), San Salvador, El Salvador (1999).