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This is the website of Adam Garcia. Currently I am teaching SYG 2000 and working on a MA thesis. The following is a short list of activities I could help you with if I am available. Please feel free to contact me at any time, preferably by email at agarcia@soc.ufl.edu.

research
transcription
translation (Dutch to English)
consulting
web design/publishing

Or if you have other ideas I haven't thought of just let me know.

Current Work

Currently I am working on negotiating the text written for my MA thesis, Theorizing Dutch Cultural Diaspora: a critical liberation approach. This work follows an approach strongly situated in my own life experiences in hopes of inspiring and engaging others to rethink notions of society, nation, and the state in terms of diaspora - i.e. to cultivate 'diasporic consciousness.' Although culture is material and cultural practices are situated, my notion of diasporic consciousness enables the recognition that culture is neither coterminous with places/spaces, nor is it something that contains its practicioners. Rather it is important to recognize that culture and its practicioners are situated in the flows and translations of knowledge that take place as a result of movement and intermixing. It is also useful to remember that we socially construct our images of the social world in the interests of ourselves and others, and thus I devote ample attention to diaspora as an image available to individuals, and thus by extension to groups and institutions; available to facillitate liberation from statism.

Theorizing, in my view, is not something reserved for an elite group of intellectuals once they achieve sufficient academic status, but rather I see theorizing as thinking (or knowing) that we all engage in to make sense of our lives. Theorizing does not take place in a vacuum, and hopefully not always in isolation. Theorizing can be a means of "coming to one's own senses" through self-dialogue but is also a means of interacting with others. Theorizing is always a social activity but it need not aim at dominating others. The practice of liberation involves both learning to see and understand domination and submission, but also the faith and commitment to discover alternative ways of relating, in practice.

'"Theorizing Dutch Cultural Diaspora" utilizes a mixed method and influences from diverse sources with a strong emphasis on narrating sociological work as part of writing it to pursue multiple goals simultaneously. Since degree-producing work such as a master's thesis is supposed to define the scientific approach of its writer, I wrote extensively to discuss various aspects of methodology and expectations of academic writing while dealing with issues of race and racism, and Dutch ethnicity (Dutchness) from my own position of engagement with it. Diaspora, at a radical level, involves recognizing that each individual has her/his own unique society constructed through a personal genealogy of movements, cultural contacts, and experiences. None of us share the same society although we struggle for sameness in various ways. No matter how specific the intersection we share with another, there are always differences from within and shared commonalities from without. This is a statement not meant to undermine intersectionalism but to further it. In this project I tried to go beyond socially locating users of Dutchness in terms of difference toward exploring commonalities of migrating. This approach resonates with P Essed's call to recognize commonalities before differences, but also with my own experience within a particular diasporic intersection of Dutch society. Although I neither claim sameness with all other (Dutch) migrants nor do I suggest that differences are not constructed and enforced with inequal consequences, I hypothesize that it is valuable for people who have the privilege to do so to recognize and/or construct shared experiences with (other) oppressed individuals as a measure of becoming more socially mindful, and enabling better solidarity. After all how can we empathize with others if we have made no attempt to comprehend their experiences in any way with reference to our own?

Writing on Dutchness has left me open for criticism in terms of studying the sociology of race and racism in a U.S. context. For me such criticism can only be legitimated from a statist perspective. Thinking diasporically, I cannot separate my engagement with the U.S. from its intersections with other countries, such as the Netherlands and Cuba (as well as certainly others as well), that have endowed my subjectivity with its own unique experiences of nationalism(s). Can I guarantee that everyone can learn from my experiences with Dutchness as I have? Do I have a responsibility to share and apply my knowledge in whatever way can benefit others? Neither of these questions have simple answers. I can say that racism is not a national problem but a multidimensional one that is global and local and that I do not see the benefit in either putting on national blinders or in abusing the criticism of national ethnocentrism as a means of obscuring issues because they are labeled 'domestic' or 'local.' Dutchness is for me a local issue as much as 'U.S. race-relations' and white-racism are. If this sounds strange it may be because you envision the local as something external whereas in my view it is local because we are engaged in it. To say that we can be engaged in something that is not present in our local context is a contradiction and an empirical impossibility from a knowledge perspective. What we know is here and now.

Since the manuscript of my thesis is currently in review (and even if it wasn't) I would be more than happy to send (parts of) it out to readers willing to provide critical-constructive feedback and/or use it as a means of reflecting on and sharing their own visions of sociological relevance. Please do not offer to help in order to undermine or otherwise destructively engage the text. I am interested in your opinion and vision when you express your project and intent. My email address is listed at the top of this page.