Kenan Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and adjunct professor with the PhD Program in Design and Creation, Universidad de Caldas (Manizales, Colombia), and with the PhD Program in Environmental Sciences, Universidad del Valle (Cali).
His main interests are: political ecology, ontological design, and the anthropology of development, social movements, and technoscience. Over the past twenty-five years, he has worked closely with several Afro-Colombian social movements in the Colombian Pacific, particular the Process of Black Communities (PCN). His most well-known book is Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995). His most recent books are: Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (2018), and Pluriversal Politics: The Real and the Possible (2020).