Society of Scholars
The Society of Scholars is an intellectual community of humanists of diverse generations, academic ranks, and departmental affiliations who contribute to and learn from one another’s work. Each year, approximately eight faculty and three dissertation research fellowships support members of the Society of Scholars. Scholars in year-long residence at the University of Washington may be invited to participate as well. The group meets biweekly throughout the year to discuss their research in progress.
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2024 - 2025 Society of Scholars
2020 - 2021 Society of Scholars Fellow
Sebastián López Vergara (he/him/his)
The Logic of Reduction: Indigenous Peoples, Colonialism, Capitalism, and Race in Modern Chile
Addressing the current neoliberal crises in Latin America, my dissertation studies the long duration of social conflicts in modern Chile. It focuses on the colonization of the Kawésqar, Yamana, and Selk’nam peoples and the Mapuche people by the modern Chilean state since the late nineteenth century. Theorizing the “logic of reduction,” it examines how colonialism, capitalism, and race structured ongoing relations of extreme inequality that, nonetheless, have not exhausted Indigenous struggles. Particularly, it studies diverse forms of Indigenous politics against dispossession and exploitation.