Jorge E. Cuéllar is a scholar of politics, culture, and daily life in modern Central America. His research and teaching focus on Central American Studies, Cultural Studies, Race, Migration, and Critical Social Theory. His work appears in numerous journals and his public essays and columns are found in El Faro, NACLA, Social Text’s Periscope, Los Angeles Review of Books, among many others.
Latest News
On Isthmian Knowing: Bodies, Archives, Futures
Central America’s story is much more complex than meets the eye. The region’s cultures are not mere analytical shorthand—peoples fissured by colonialism, imperialism, and …
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From Civil Wars to Neoliberalism in Central America
An interview with Hilary Goodfriend and Jorge Cuéllar
The end of the bloody, US-backed civil wars across Central America led to a brutal neoliberal economic restructuring near the turn of the century …
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SC woman was aiding children of 85,000 jailed Salvadorans. Then US support vanished.
By Mitchell Black mblack@postandcourier.com
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. SAN SALVADOR — Julie Grier-Villatte wants to help the children of people jailed by El Salvador’s …
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Oligarchy, Empire, and Revolution in Central America
Published in Jacobin
There is a direct line in Central America stretching back more than a century from US-backed military intervention, to support of reactionary oligarchies, to devastating neoliberal restructuring, to the migration crisis now exploited in US politics.
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Beyond the Iron Fist
Published in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America
President Nayib Bukele’s administration has repealed El Salvador’s 2017 metallic mining ban, paving the way for renewed extraction projects that threaten the environment and target environmental activists, such as the ongoing politically motivated trial against five water defenders from Santa Marta.
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‘Defending our bodies and land’: Why the fight to protect the environment is a matter of life and death in Honduras
Interviewed by the The Irish Times
Murder and violence, combined with US aid freeze, leaves indigenous communities increasingly vulnerable to exploitation.
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