Amaya Álvez Marin (Chile) Associate Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Concepción, Chile Amaya reports that the IGLP “changed the way I saw the world.” As a member of the Mapuche people, an indigenous group in Chile, she credits her engagement with the IGLP as a turning point in her perception of the real world problems facing indigenous minorities. She joined the IGLP as a doctoral student in Canada in 2010 and quickly discovered the richness of the network. Amaya speaks enthusiastically about her “IGLP friends” who are collegial and collaborative, who read each other’s writing and offer support in the form of hosting talks, organizing panels and who “look for each other at conferences.” What Amaya describes as a “broader and deeper a web of academic friends” is also a growing pool of transnational and interdisciplinary expertise that allows each member of the IGLP community to access ideas, resources, and audiences that they could never find on their own. Since 2010, the IGLP has provided her with the unique opportunity to serve first as a docent, then as a Junior Faculty at multiple IGLP Workshops. She is particularly proud to have participated in the 2015 IGLP conference in Bogotá because it brought the global skills and expertise of IGLP participants to Latin America while actively involving the perspectives offered by local scholars. Thinking back to the 2015 IGLP Workshop in Colombia, Amaya puts it succinctly when she says that having support from the IGLP “makes everything possible.” She continues: “If you take the support out of the picture then it’s only a conversation among Harvard people - which is simply not enough.”
Amaya Álvez Marin is now an Associate Professor of Law and Political Science at the Faculty of Social and Legal Studies and an Associate Researcher at the Fondap Water Centre for Mining and Agriculture, at the University of Concepción, Chile. Amaya received her LL.B from the University of Concepción (Chile) and was called to the Bar by the Supreme Court of Chile in 1998. She holds a D.E.A. from the Faculty of Law at the University of Liege, Belgium, an LL.M. from the Faculty of law at the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto.
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