Event

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, the UCLA Wasserman Dean, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Distinguished Professor of Education, is a psychological anthropologist and a scholar of globalization, migration and education. He is the award-winning author and co-author of multiple volumes published by Harvard University Press, Stanford University Press, University of California Press, Cambridge University Press, inter alia. His scholarly papers, in a range of disciplines and languages, appear in such journals as Harvard Business Review, Harvard Educational Review, Revue Française de Pédagogie (Paris), Cultuur en Migratie (Leuven), Ethos, Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Temas, Cultura, Ideología, Sociedad (Havana, Cuba), Harvard Policy Review and others. He regularly contributes to media outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, U.S News and World Report, Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, CNN, NPR, and others. The recipient of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, he has served as Special Advisor to the Chief Prosecutor, the International Criminal Court and has authored multiple texts for Pope Francis’ Pontifical Academies. At Harvard University, he was the Thomas Professor of Education and Culture, co-founder and co-director of the Harvard Immigration Projects, and Member of the inaugural Executive Committee, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. At New York University he was the inaugural Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education. In 2009-10 he was the Richard Fisher Member at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has been visiting professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris), University of Barcelona and the Catholic University of Leuven. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education, he has lectured at the German foreign office, Mexican foreign office, Spanish foreign office, Vatican, U.S. Congress, the Federal Reserve Bank, United Nations, Davos and in multiple other scholarly and policy venues in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. An immigrant from Argentina, he is a product of the California Master Plan, commencing his studies in community college—where 40 years ago he met Carola Suárez-Orozco, the eminent psychologist and scholar of immigration—and transferring to UC Berkeley where he received his B.A., (Psychology), M.A. (Anthropology), and Ph.D. (Anthropology).

His talk: The world is witnessing a rapid rise in the numbers of a plurality of migrants —involuntary, internal or international, authorized or unauthorized, environmental refugees and victims of human trafficking. These flows have intensified under the ascendancy of globalization, rachitic and collapsing states, war and terror, climate change, and growing inequality. Catastrophic migrations pose new international risks to millions of migrants and challenge the institutions of sending, transit, and receiving nations alike. While immigration is normative, it has taken a dystopic turn. Worldwide, civil and ethnic wars, structural violence, environmental cataclysms, and growing inequality are behind the largest displacement of people since World War II. Of the over 60 million forcefully displaced, half are children. Under the best of circumstances migration generates a psychosocial disequilibrium. This lecture will examine dystopic migrations qua the family in its legislative, social, and symbolic forms.