Daniel P. Gámez

Formal headshot of a man with pulled-back hair, trimmed beard, navy blazer, light gray background

Position Title
Assistant Professor

he/him/él
Office Hours
On appointment.
Bio

Daniel P. Gámez is a scholar from Juan Aldama, Zacatecas, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at UC Davis. Before joining UC Davis, he was UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Departments of American Indian Studies and History at UCLA.

Daniel's research interests include anticolonial traditions from a hemispheric perspective, Indigenous intellectual production in Abya Yala, the long history of autonomous communities in Mexico, Indigenous mobilities, land and water relations, critical environmental studies, and urban Indigeneities.

He is currently working on his first book manuscript, Memories of Chinampameca: Autonomy and the Life of the Wetlands in the Mexican Metropolis. This work is based on several years of critical archival study, agroecological practice, participatory-action research, and walking alongside traditional authorities of the Nahua pueblo of Atlapulco, southern Mexico City. The book investigates how the community has struggled for self-determination after the onset of deep environmental transformations prompted by the rise of colonial Mexico City, with an emphasis on extractivist hydraulic infrastructure.

Education and Degree(s)
  • PhD, Geography, University of British Columbia (2024)
Research Interests & Expertise
  • Land and Water Relations
  • Anticolonial thought and praxis from Abya Yala
  • Urban Indigeneities
  • Colonial state formaton in Abya Yala
  • Internal and settler colonialism
  • Indigenous autonomy
  • Anti-imperialism
Membership and Service
  • Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)
  • Latin American Studies Association (LASA)
  • American Association of Geographers (AAG)