Dr. Fernando David Márquez Duarte
Short-Term Fellow
March–July 2026
Bio
Fernando David Márquez Duarte is a Mexican decolonial activist and scholar from Mexicali, Mexico. He has a permanent physical disability. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California Riverside (UCR) and works at the intersection of decoloniality, Indigenous studies, and environmental justice, with a regional focus on Latin America (Abya Yala). He philosophizes in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
For more than four years, Márquez Duarte has worked with the Cucapáh Indigenous group in Baja California, Mexico. His research interests include Indigenous rights, political participation, language preservation, and environmental justice. During his GloPhi fellowship, he investigates Cucapáh philosophical thought through the community’s language, cosmovision, and oral stories, as well as their ongoing struggles for environmental justice and self-determination.
He is the author of the booklet Sociolingüística Cucapáh (2025), lead researcher of the report Mapping of Indigenous and Disabled Candidates in Baja California in the 2024 Elections (2024), co-author of Manual de la Lengua Cucapáh (2024), coordinator and editor of Awi Uyáj Cucapáh: El saber Cucapáh (2023), and editor of Decolonizing Politics and Theories from the Abya Yala (E-International Relations, 2022). His recent academic articles have appeared in Latin American Perspectives, Novos Debates, VIDERE, and E-International Relations, addressing Indigenous self-determination across the Abya Yala, the Cucapáh struggle against green colonialism, ethnographic reciprocity under conditions of disability, decolonial praxis, and critical consciousness development through Indigenous public consultation. In 2025 he also coordinated the Decolonial Praxis dossier for E-International Relations.
Márquez Duarte is the co-founder and co-director of the Environmental Justice Committee of the Border and the co-founder and co-director of the Decolonial Praxis Collective.
Research
Decoloniality, Indigenous studies, Environmental Justice
Regions
Latin America (Abya Yala)
Languages
Spanish, English, Portuguese
Books
Sociolingüística Cucapáh (booklet), 2025.
Mapping of Indigenous and Disabled Candidates in Baja California in the 2024 Elections (lead researcher), 2024.
Manual de la Lengua Cucapáh (co-authored with Margarita Valenzuela Portillo), 2024.
Awi Uyáj Cucapáh: El saber Cucapáh (coordinator and editor), 2023.
Decolonizing Politics and Theories from the Abya Yala (co-edited with Víctor Alejandro Espinoza Valle), Bristol: E-International Relations, 2022.
Articles
“The Mexicali Committee in Solidarity with Palestine as a Case of Decolonial Praxis” (co-authored with A. Mohammed), in Fernando David Márquez Duarte, Dulce Alarcón Payán and Javier Daniel Alarcón Mares (eds.), Decolonial Praxis: Going Beyond Empty Words, Bristol: E-International Relations, 2025.
“Critical Consciousness Development through Indigenous Public Consultation in Baja California” (co-authored with Javier Daniel Alarcón Mares), in Fernando David Márquez Duarte, Dulce Alarcón Payán and Javier Daniel Alarcón Mares (eds.), Decolonial Praxis: Going Beyond Empty Words, Bristol: E-International Relations, 2025.
“Conducting Ethnographic Work with the Cucapáh Indigenous Community: Access, Disability and Reciprocity,” Novos Debates: Fórum de Antropologia, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2025), e111002.
“You Can Sit with Us but under Our Terms: The Recognition of Indigenous Self-Determination by Nation-States throughout the Abya Yala,” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 51 (2024).
“The Cucapáh Indigenous Group’s Struggle against Green Colonialism: Self-Determination & Fishing Rights,” VIDERE, Vol. 15, No. 32 (2023), 48–71.
Coordinator (with Dulce Alarcón Payán and Javier Daniel Alarcón Mares), dossier Decolonial Praxis: Going Beyond Empty Words, Bristol: E-International Relations, 2025.
Links
