Dr. Rafael Shimabukuro

Biography

Rafael is a critical social scientist whose work cuts across Politics, Sociology, History, and Geography. As a PhD candidate in Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge, supported by the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarship Programme, Rafael holds a Master of Science in Politics Research from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Politics, and International Studies from the University of Warwick. His research agenda is driven by a desire to understand the diverse ways working classes and subaltern groups pursue differing visions of ‘progress’ and modernity. His past research examined neoliberalism in 1990s Peru, challenging common academic and activist narratives that focus exclusively on repression, arguing that the neoliberal turn cannot be properly understood without examining the variegated processes through which working classes (re)produce neoliberalism. He maintains ongoing interests in urban planning, local democracy, and socialist self-management, informed by interactions in Villa El Salvador, a district in Lima founded as a self-managed urban commune in the early 1970s. Rafael is also interested in race, ethnicity, and colonialism, and has published on the politics of ethnic clothing.

Research Interests