Renowned Cuban-American sociologist and demographer Alejandro Portes received the 2024 Daniel Cosío Villegas Prize in Social Sciences, which is awarded every two years by the Colegio de México to scholars or institutions with “exceptional academic careers” in that field.
During the award ceremony in early February, Portes delivered a lecture on the rise of nationalist populism. His colleagues praised his research and highlighted his fundamental contributions to the study of social classes in Latin America.
A distinguished professor at the University of Miami, where he teaches at both the School of Law and College of Arts and Sciences, Portes also received the 2019 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, Spain’s highest honor. Portes was recognized for contributions that “have been fundamental to the construction of the concept of social capital, the discussion on the informal sector in Latin America, as well as the understanding of the processes of social integration of migrants to their destination countries.”
Portes is the author of some thirty books and special issues, as well as some 250 articles and chapters in collective works, and is widely considered a leading authority on topics such as international migration and transnationalism, economic sociology, comparative development, urbanization of developing countries, and social marginalization.
