This is our third installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a series of posts on what it's like to work as an academic philosopher in countries outside the anglophone west. This is a guest post by Santiago Amaya is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. You can find more about him at here.
Being a philosopher in Colombia is a lot like being an academic in many parts of the world. At least, that’s how it looks on paper. I am an Associate Professor at a leading institution in my country. I teach, write, and try to get published, all of which is very stimulating. I also spend quite a bit of time in committee meetings. Not fun, for sure, but I am told that’s how things are almost everywhere these days.
Move beyond appearances and you’ll find texture. Lots of it! The country is going through singular times that bring interesting challenges, new opportunities, and a renewed sense of relevance. There is much that needs to be built in Colombia today. And philosophy here has the good chance of contributing to it.
You’ve probably heard about the Colombian peace process. (If you haven’t, please take a break from reading philosophy blogs and read some real news.) It started in 2012, reached a peace agreement in 2016, and is bringing to an end a 50-year conflict between FARC and the Colombian government. Today we’re going through the process of its implementation. In political terms, it’s been a struggle: war is profitable business for politicians. In philosophical terms, it’s been a Socratic dream.
The questions are out there, in the minds of people on the streets. Is reconciliation possible? How can we turn hatred into respect? What is the point of punishment? Of forgiveness? With my students, we’ve gone over these and similar questions many times in and out of class. As a moral psychologist, I have made a modest contribution, which you can read here.
I moved to Bogotá 6 years ago after finishing my PhD in the PNP program at Washington University in St. Louis and a 1-year postdoc at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. I felt some anxiety about my career when I took the offer. Although I grew up in the city and was returning to my alma mater, my philosophical home was elsewhere. As reasonable as these sentiments were at the time, the worries I had then have now disappeared.
Let me explain. Colombia is far from being at the “center of things,” philosophical or otherwise. The distance is certainly not geographical. You can jump on a plane in New York and arrive in Bogotá in less time than it would take to get to L.A. If you are in Miami you can get here before you make it to Chicago. It’s more about North-South power dynamics. At any given conference in North America, it’s more likely that people ask me about Narcos than they ask about my work.
Being in the “periphery,” however, has many advantages, as I’ve come to discover. With distance, the gulf between what’s fashionable in the “center” and what really matters philosophically becomes sharper. In my corner of the world, the things that “mainstream” philosophers find intuitive are often regarded as bizarre. Many catchy phrases and terms of art do not translate well. All of this, I believe, makes it easier to find a unique philosophical voice. And that is something really valuable to me.
I am lucky to teach some of the best undergraduates in the country. My master’s students are great too. Some have been accepted to doctoral programs at Cornell, Princeton, Michigan, Notre Dame, NYU, and UCSD, to name a few places. Others are pursuing careers as teachers, civil servants, and project managers at recognized NGOs. It helps, in this regard, that many of my colleagues are engaged in national debates outside the ivory tower. One of our political philosophers, for instance, was the secretary of the Colombian Communist Party for 20 years and was an advisor of our peace process.
Like many of you, I wish my country would commit more funds for research; my institution has the will but not the muscle that, say, some North American research institutions have. Still, I have received generous funds that have allowed me to organize 3 workshops, invite to campus more than 35 distinguished philosophers and scientists, make on average 3 international trips a year, and have joint projects with people at Duke, UNAM, and Conicet in Argentina. I have been lucky, no doubt, as many philosophers in my country do not have access to comparable resources. But I’ve also worked hard to connect my community with the rest of the world.
As a result of these efforts, with philosopher Manuel Vargas at UC San Diego, we were awarded at the beginning of this year a $1.2M grant by the John Templeton Foundation to run a project on Free Will, Agency, and Responsibility. This is, to our knowledge, the largest philosophy grant given to a Latin American university. It is a great responsibility: we have some power to make things different for a younger generation of philosophers in the region. It’s also a very exciting opportunity. You can read more about the project here.
In recent years, my department has grown significantly. Since I arrived, 6 other philosophers have joined and we are hoping to add a few more—we now total 12 full-time faculty members for roughly 200 majors. But the trend is observable in many philosophy departments in the country. Just to give you an idea of the numbers, in Bogotá alone (which has a population of roughly 10 million people) there are 4 research universities with philosophy departments offering masters or doctoral degrees.
Philosophers worldwide sometimes ask me about the job prospects in Colombia. Things are changing here, so it is hard to tell. Obviously, to get a job you have to be good—the competition is hard everywhere. As most instruction occurs in Spanish, you should also be somewhat fluent. Importantly, you should really be prepared to explain why your philosophical project matters. Philosophy departments in Colombia tend to be pluralistic. So, you cannot rely on common knowledge doing the homework for you.
Because in my institution we advertise widely, we have interviewed (and hired) candidates of many different nationalities. Alas, this is not so common in the country, as job ads tend to run locally. This is not so much a sign of nationalism: Colombians are genuinely warm people, whether you come as a tourist or move here to work. It’s more a sign of the fact that only recently has the country began to think globally.
With respect to job expectations, there’s lots of variation. In my institution, which is private, the norm is a 2-2 teaching load. But at most places, public and private alike, it is higher than that. Everyone is expected to do good enough research, but the norms of what counts as good and enough are not as standardized as they are in other places in the world. Job security tends to be good, at least once you secure a permanent position. Compensation is okay. If you factor in cost of living, the salary of an Assistant professor puts you in a place where income contributes marginally to happiness.
In comparison to the US, the philosophical community in Colombia is small; in comparison to Europe, Latin America is less dense. Perhaps, that’s why I’ve put so much efforts trying to connect philosophers from and outside of the region. I miss some of the intensity that I lived through while getting my education and training abroad.
Regardless of how our academic networks ultimately fare on this regard, there are always realizations that give much hope. Here’s a personal favorite. For Anglo-American philosophers, cyber-space is often where acrimonious discussions about the discipline and professional bullying occur. For Latin American philosophers, it is the place to share the pdfs of books and articles that our libraries cannot afford.
Obviously, as you can tell by now, I am an optimist. Many philosophers in Colombia would likely have a different version of the tale of what is like to be a philosopher in our country. In my defense I would simply say that I am no stranger to the challenges that we face locally and globally, as philosophers, academics, and citizens. But, as long as I have a public voice, I’d rather keep insisting on the things that make our lives, philosophical and otherwise, worth the fight.
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