María José Aguilar Idáñez

Professor of Social Work and Social Services at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). PhD in Sociology and Political Science. She has worked in more than fifteen American and European countries and published nearly two hundred scientific contributions (including 25 books). She is director of a MSc in Immigration and Interculturalism and of the Interdisciplinary Research group on migration, interculturality and citizenship (GIEMIC) at UCLM. She has made several documentaries on migration and institutional racism. Over the last fifteen years, she has been working on new interdisciplinary approaches to migration based on empathy toward social actors as a way of contributing to the generation of social discourses based on evidence (rather than prejudice) and processes of empowerment and active defence of sub-othered groups. Her current research addresses the development of effective strategies of civil resistance against contemporary racism. All her work incorporates rights and gender perspectives.