The CMRS Center for Early Global Studies (CMRS-CEGS) is delighted to announce that Daniel P. Gámez, former Race in the Global Past Through Native Lenses University of California Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar, will continue his scholarship in his new tenure-track appointment at UC Davis as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Native American Studies. His work at UC Davis builds directly on the research, relationships, and comparative Indigenous perspectives he developed through the Mellon-funded initiative.
While at UCLA, Gámez worked on his project Memories of Chinampameca, exploring Atlapulco’s environmental and political history in Xochimilco, Mexico City, historically referred to as Anahuac. Drawing on archival research, oral histories, and maps, the project recovers Atlapulco’s memory across periods of imperial urbanism and wetland desiccation.
The fellowship also gave Gámez time and space to deepen research he had already begun on Indigenous anticolonial and political thought. He described the project as “a place where conversations between Latin American Indigenous thought and related intellectual traditions in North America could be explored more intentionally.” The relationships and programming developed during his fellowship created space for these conversations to take shape.
Relationship-building was central to Gámez’s experience with the project. He developed connections with Indigenous nations in Southern California and deepened his understanding of land dispossession, settler colonialism, and ongoing efforts to revitalize Indigenous traditions. Through workshops, programming, and visits to places in the Los Angeles region that are significant to Indigenous communities, he saw how scholarship could remain grounded in living communities and ongoing histories.
This research will continue at UC Davis, where Gámez will teach and publish on topics including waterscapes, land and water relations, hemispheric Indigeneity, and Indigenous political thought. As Gámez explained, “The department’s intellectual environment, colleagues, and commitment to hemispheric perspectives align closely with the work I pursued at UCLA.”
Reflecting on his fellowship, Gámez expressed gratitude to Zrinka Stahuljak, Shannon Speed, and the broader project community for their mentorship, friendship, and support. As he begins this next chapter at UC Davis, he will carry forward the project’s commitment to connecting scholarship with community and placing Indigenous histories in global and comparative perspective.