Federico Perez Fernandez

Federico Perez Fernandez is an Associate Professor of Urban Anthropology at Portland State University's University Honors College, specializing in urban Latin America with particular focus on Bogotá, Colombia. His research examines city planning, bureaucratic materiality, infrastructure, and the geographies of urban conflict and violence in the Global South. Originally from Bogotá, he has conducted two decades of fieldwork in the city, blending ethnographic and archival approaches to understand urban transformation.

• PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University
• MA in Social Sciences from University of Chicago
• BA in Philosophy from Universidad de los Andes

His research interests center on the intersections of urban planning, materiality, and security politics. Perez Fernandez investigates how cultural frameworks linked to Colombia's history of rural warfare reemerge in urban redevelopment contexts, shaping governance technologies and socio-material transformations. He examines the ways urban renewal functions as a microcosm of broader political struggles, particularly regarding insecurity, territorial control, and spatial justice.

His publications reveal a consistent trajectory examining urban security, material politics, and spatial transformation in Latin American cities. The most recent work focuses on aerial cable car technologies and urban engineering, while his book Urbanism as Warfare traces how anxieties about insecurity continue to shape urban life in post-conflict Colombia. His scholarship demonstrates deep engagement with both theoretical debates in urban anthropology and concrete urban policy challenges.

Perez Fernandez's research has been funded by prestigious organizations including the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Inter-American Foundation, and American Council of Learned Societies. His work bridges academic scholarship with practical urban policy concerns, having previously served as a UNDP consultant for the Bogotá Mayor's Office between 2001-2004.

Currently developing comparative studies of aerial cable car technologies and border urbanism in Latin America, Perez Fernandez maintains active engagement with contemporary debates about urban sustainability, post-oil cities, and environmental politics in the Colombian plains.