Dr. Eloy Rivas Sanchez

I was born in rural Mexico and educated in the public education system. My parents, an unprivileged rural couple who had no access to formal education, emigrated up north twice seeking work and better life chances to improve their offspring’s quality of life. Through example, they taught the value of hard work, collaboration, perseverance, and devotion to one’s dreams as tools to overcome obstacles and to move forward. Although illiterate, they had “faith” in education as an emancipatory instrument and motivated me to go to school. My teachers, mentors, and the public education system, did all the rest. With their encouragement, support, and mentorship, I completed a BS in Sociology at the Universidad de Sonora (Mexico), a MA in Sociology at the University of Windsor, and a PhD in Sociology with specialization in Political Economy at Carleton University.

My research and teaching praxes are guided by the normative principle which considers that the scientific inquiry and the learning process must serve the purposes of human life improvement and emancipation, including emancipation from exclusion, illiteracy, harm and suffering.

As a researcher, my work interrogates how ideologies, social structures and institutional practices affect the lives and wellbeing of vulnerable populations, and how those affected enact agency to overcome domination, disrespect and dehumanization. With that in mind, I have worked closely with immigrants of precarious status, racialized minorities, people living with HIV, sexual minorities, subaltern mestizo men in rural communities, and indigenous organizations, both in the South and Global North. Throughout that process, I have learned how mixing research, collaboration, and community organizing can provide the basis upon which positive social change can occur.

As an educator, my goal is to work with students to cultivate knowledge, identify and improve human potential, and to cultivate what Paulo Freire called “the radical imagination,” a critical understanding of the social world we inhabit, and a practical will to transform it in a way that people’s lives can be improved.

Discover my research

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Research interests

• Precarious international migration;
• Social movements and prefigurative politics;
• Labour, work and health;
• Race/class/gender;
• Political Economy
• Ethnography

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Educational credentials

• PhD Carleton University
• MA University of Windsor
• BA Universidad de Sonora

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Professional affiliations

• Canadian Sociological Association
• Latin American Studies Association
• UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship, and Transformative Education (DCMET)
• Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS)

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