Matthias vom Hau
Research interests
Matthias vom Hau is a Lewis-Gluckman Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Brooks World Poverty Institute. He has a PhD (2007) and MA (2001) from Brown University and a BA equivalent from Humboldt University Berlin (1998).
Matthias’ research interests concern the nexus between culture, power, and public policy. Specifically, he investigates the construction of political legitimacy. How do state political and cultural institutions frame collective identities and instill a sense of belonging among their citizenry, and how do civil society actors and ordinary citizens negotiate and challenge state-sponsored identity projects? Moreover, Matthias is interested in the role of discourse and identities in the politics of redistribution. How do changes in conceptions of nationhood and ethnicity impact social provision, and how does social policy in turn affect those identity projects?
He presently pursues these interests through two distinct projects, both based on empirical research and currently being written up as books and articles. His book manuscript, Contested Inclusion: Transformations of Nationalism in Mexico, Argentina, and Peru, is a comparative-historical analysis of changes in official national discourses in these countries during the mid-20th century. It draws on original primary materials and traces trajectories of nationalism through an analysis of school textbooks and teacher testimonials. To explain transformations of nationalism it employs an institutional approach that calls attention to conflicts and alignments between state elites and subordinate movements, and to the timing of state making.
The second project investigates the recent rise of indigenous movements in Argentina and its implications for social inequality. Specifically, it examines ethnic mobilization around land issues and explores the impact of land rights granted to legally recognized “indigenous communities” on the experience of poverty in rural areas. Argentina also provides an ideal case to evaluate the numerous theoretical approaches for explaining recent indigenous mobilization in the Andean countries, Mexico, and Central America outside the empirical context of their construction.
Recent publications
- Matthias vom Hau, “State Infrastructural Power and Nationalism: Comparative Lessons from Mexico and Argentina.” Studies in Comparative International Development 43: 3-4 (December 2008), pp. 334-354.
- José Itzigsohn and Matthias vom Hau (equal co-authors), “Unfinished Imagined Communities: States, Social Movements, and Nationalism in Latin America,” Theory and Society 35 (April 2006), pp. 193-212.
- Matthias vom Hau, “Theorizing Nationalism in Latin America: A Comparison of Mexico, Argentina, and Peru,” in Manuela Boatca and Willfried Spohn, Global, Multiple and Peripheral Modernities: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives. München: Reiner Hampp Verlag, forthcoming. Publication scheduled for Winter 2008.
- Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Matthias vom Hau, “Social Identities,” in Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Useable Theory: Analytical Tools for Social Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming. Publication scheduled for Winter 2008.
Contact Details
Brooks World Poverty Institute
School of Environment and Devlopment
Faculty of Humanities
University of Manchester
Manchester
M13 9PL
016127566698
email: Matthias.VomHau@manchester.ac.uk