Jasmin Hristov

BIOGRAPHY

As of July 1, 2021 I joined the University of Guelph as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Guelph Institute of Development Studies (GIDS).

Between 2017 and 2021 I was Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department of History and Sociology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan and Associate Member of the Gender and Women’s Studies Program.

My research expertise is in the areas of political violence, international development, paramilitary groups, agrarian conflicts, peasant movements, and violence against women

I regard myself as a global sociologist. My teaching and research are humanist and transformative in their orientation and are aimed at promoting social justice and contributing to social transformation by empowering people to become agents ofchange. I believe in the need to globalize the sociological imagination and ‘commit’ sociology by combining intellectual endeavors with love for people and a belief that change is possible and necessary. At a time when our world is facing deepening wealth inequalities, environmental and migration crises, and the rise of militaristic, repressive, and neo-fascist political tendencies, we need more than ever the humanizing and empowering potential of sociology.

I obtained my PhD in Sociology from York University, Toronto in 2013. Prior to coming to UBC in 2017, I worked as a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto, McMaster, Trent, and York University.

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For over 15 years I have been carrying out research on Colombia’s armed conflict and paramilitary groups. I have conducted interviews as well as focus groups with people from different sectors of society, who have been involved and affected by the armed conflict in diverse ways including: officials from the Colombian military, the Attorney General’s office, criminal investigators; indigenous movements; victims of forced displacement; and members of paramilitary groups.

In 2017, I studied a sex-trafficking network linked to paramilitary groups in Colombia and interviewed several former members of this network.

Since 2017, I have expanded my research on state and paramilitary violence into Mexico and Central America.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

Hristov, J. (2014). Paramilitarism and Neoliberalism: Violent Systems of Capital Accumulation in Colombia and Beyond. London: Pluto Press.

Hristov, J. (2009). Blood and Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press.

Edited Volumes

Hristov, J., Sprague, J. and Tauss, A. (Eds). Paramilitary Groups and the State under Globalization: Political Violence, Elites, and Security. [Forthcoming Routledge Jan 2022]

Refereed Academic Journal Articles

Hristov, J. (2021). Pro-Capitalist Violence and the Great Wave of Dispossession: Armed Actors and Agrarian Conflicts in Colombia, Mexico, and Honduras. Sociology of Development 7(2), 129-158. https://doi.org/10.1525/sod.2021.7.2.129

Coates, R., Colombo, E., Dores, A., Hernandez, S., and Hristov, J. (2018). Teaching Globalization Globally: the Experience of Globalization, Social Justice and Human Rights course. Islamic Perspective: Journal of Islamic Studies and Humanities 19, 83-99.

Hristov, J. (2017). Guerrillas, Marxists, Terrorists, or Trouble-Makers? Doing Sociology in High-Risk Violent Conflict Areas. Canadian Review of Sociology, 54(3), 375-377.

Hristov, J. (2010). Self-Defense Forces, Warlords or Criminal Gangs? Towards a New Conceptualization of Paramilitarism in Colombia. Labour, Capital and Society, 43(2), 13-56.

Hristov J. (2009). Social Class and Ethnicity/Race in the Dynamics of Indigenous Peasant Movements: the Case of the CRIC in Colombia. Latin American Perspectives, 36 (4), 41-63.

Hristov, J. (2005). Freedom and Democracy or Hunger and Terror: Neoliberalism and Militarization in Latin America. Social Justice, 32 (2), 89-119.

Hristov, J. (2005). Indigenous Struggles for Land and Culture in Cauca (Colombia). Journal of Peasant Studies, 32 (1), 88-117.

Hristov, J. (2004). Land, Blood and Capital Accumulation: Latin America’s Eternal War on the Poor. Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 1 (3), 4-19.

Book Chapters

Hristov, J. (2020). Pro-Capitalist Violence and Globalization: Lessons from Latin America. In Hosseini, S.A.H., Goodman, J., Motta, S.C., & Gills, B.K. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Transformative Global Studies. London: Routledge.

Hristov, J. (2019). Armed Actors, the Commodification of Women and the Destruction of Childhood: Understanding the Connections between Predatory Sexuality and the Violence of Capital in Colombia. In Cohn, S. and Blumberg, R. (Eds.), Gender and Development: Economic Basis of Women’s Power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hristov, J. (2020). Globalization, Militarization, and Violence in Latin America. In Caliskan, G. (Ed.), Globalizing Gender, Gendering Globalization: Post-Colonial Perspectives. Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada.

Hristov, J. (2020). The Capital-State Nexus and its War on Women. In Caliskan, G. (Ed.), Globalizing Gender, Gendering Globalization: Post-Colonial Perspectives. Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada.

Forthcoming

Hristov, J., Sprague, J. and Tauss, A. (Eds). Paramilitary groups and the State under Globalization: Political Violence, Elites, and Security. [forthcoming Routledge Jan 2022].

Hristov, J. and Bushra, L. (2022). Theorizing Non-State Armed Actors in the Era of Economic Globalization: Beyond the Criminal and the Terrorist. In Hristov, J., Sprague, J. and Tauss, A. (Eds.), Paramilitary groups and the State under Globalization: Political Violence, Elites, and Security. [forthcoming Routledge Jan 2022].

Hristov, J. and Spring, K. Paramilitarism in Progress: the Low-Intensity War against Popular Mobilizations Honduras. In Hristov, J., Sprague, J., and Tauss, A. (Eds.), Paramilitary groups and the State under Globalization: Political Violence, Elites, and Security. [forthcoming Routledge Jan 2022].

Non-Refereed Publications

Hristov, J. and Spring, K. (2021). Entre Palma, Plomo, y Policías: Paramilitarismo, el Brazo Armado del Desarrollo. Avispa  Midia. https://avispa.org/entre-palma-plomo-y-policias-paramilitarismo-el-brazo-  armado-del-desarrollo/

Jimenez Argumosa, P. and Hristov, J. (2021). La Violencia Política, Paramilitar y Pro-Capitalista Asola a Honduras https://www.elsaltodiario.com/mapas/la-violencia-politica-paramilitar-y-pro-capitalista-asola-a-honduras

Hristov, J. (2016). The Colombian Peace Accords: From Repression to Concession to the Possibility for Real Change or Betrayal. The Pluto Press Blog. https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/the-colombian-peace-accords-by-jasmin-hristov/

Hristov, J. (2016). Парамілітарне насильство, капітал і держава в умовах глобалізації [Paramilitary Violence, Capital and the State under Globalization]. Spil’ne/Commons: Journal of Social Criticism. (Nov 2016, Ukraine). https://commons.com.ua/ru/paramilitarne-nasilstvo/

Hristov, J. (2006). Uribe and the Paramilitarization of the Colombian State. New Socialist, Nov-Dec., No.59, available at: http://www.newsocialist.org/attachments/129_NewSocialist-Issue59.pdf

Book Reviews

Hristov, J. (2006). Review, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 31 (3), 393-396.

RESEARCH GRANTS