Remembering Álvaro Camacho Guizado
December 20, 2011
By Esther Terry
Colombian sociologist and former Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow Álvaro Camacho Guizado died December 11, 2011 at the age of 72.
His research, teaching, and writing focused on the evolution and impact of drug trafficking and the failures of Colombia’s “war on drugs,” giving special attention to the victims of rural and urban violence and the social inequalities beneath armed conflict.
Together with his wife Nora Segura Escobar, also a sociologist and Kellogg visiting fellow, Camacho spent the fall and winter of 2000–01 at the Kellogg Institute as part of the Democracy, Human Rights, and Peace in Colombia Project. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the project gave scholars at risk from Colombia’s armed conflict the opportunity to safely continue their research on the problems facing their country. Camacho’s Kellogg project focused on tensions and obstacles to democracy and consolidation in Colombia.
Camacho received his PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin. In a distinguished academic career, he was professor at the Universidad del Valle (Cali), research professor and director of the Institute for Political Studies and International Relations (IEPRI) at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá), and for the last decade, professor and director at the Center for Sociocultural and International Studies (CESO) at the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá).
For many years a columnist for the Colombian newspaper El Espectador, Camacho was also an active member of the Grupo de Memoria Histórica, of the Comisión Nacional de Reparación y Reconciliación.
Our sympathies go out to his family and especially to his wife Nora.
Read the article from Espectador.com here. (en español)
