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Hugo Ceron Anaya, Associate Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University

Hugo Ceron Anaya

Associate Professor

610.758.3627
hrc209@lehigh.edu
0031 - Williams Hall
Education:

Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Essex, U.K., 2003-2009

M.A. in Sociology, University of Essex, U.K., 2002-2003

B.A. National University of Mexico, Mexico, 1994 - 1998

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Research Areas

Additional Interests

  • Studying up
  • Wealth
  • Privilege
  • Latin America
  • Mexico
  • Latin@s
  • Class, Race, and Gender
  • Social Theory

Research Statement

I am a “studying up” sociologist specialized in Latin America. As an ethnographer, my work has focused on understanding how wealth and privilege contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities. My scholarly wants to show how a “studying up” perspective does not emanate from a type of intellectual “revenge” or a scholarly sense of “envy.” Instead, I aim to demonstrate the importance of viewing wealth as an inseparable side of poverty. This angle could offer new ideas and understandings about the organization and perpetuation of social exclusion. In doing so, I want to contribute to developing more efficient anti-poverty policies worldwide.

My award-winning book illustrates how my work uses a “studying up” approach to examining social disparities. Privilege at Play: Class, Race, Gender, and Golf in Mexico (OUP, 2019) is a study based on ethnographic research conducted in three highly exclusive golf clubs and in-depth interviews with upper-middle and upper-class golfers, and working-class employees, in Mexico City. The book incorporates race and gender perspectives to study class, illustrating the multilayer condition of power. For instance, although Mexicans—and Latin Americans—commonly attribute racial relations to a marginal role in the reproduction of social hierarchies, my work demonstrates how affluent individuals combine racialized and class arguments to justify poverty. Meanwhile, the analysis of gender shows how affluent women experience a paradoxical form of privilege—one that benefits them regarding lower-class women and men but which subordinates them to their male peers. Privilege at Play demonstrates the importance of examining affluent groups to understanding the complexities of social inequalities.

Overall, my work reflects two broader social considerations extending well beyond Mexico or Latin America. First, it shows that the standard anti-poverty policies centered only on economic solutions fail to understand the multilayered nature of social exclusion. Thus, most public policies cannot produce the intended results without a more sophisticated analysis of the origins of poverty and inequality. Second, considering the growing wealth accumulation among the upper classes globally—a trend that the pandemic accelerated everywhere—it is worth asking, does social scientists’ limited knowledge about the upper-middle and upper classes obscure the role these groups play in the reproduction of inequalities? It is hard to debate the point in most nations because we do not have enough data to address the question. My work aims to shed light on the issue particularly in Latin America. 

Biography

Hugo Cerón Anaya is a sociologist who specializes in the study of elites. His work inverts the usual formula of analysis of social inequalities. Thus, he has focused on analyzing class, gender, and racialization dynamics among Mexico’s upper middle and upper classes. His book, Privilege at Play: Class, Race, Gender, and Golf in Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2019) is an ethnographic study of the exclusive world of golf in Mexico City. This work won the “Best Book of the Year 2020” award by the North American Society for Sociological Studies in Sport. The book was published in Spanish in the CALAS-CLACSO open-access collection (2024). Cerón Anaya holds a BA in history from UNAM, an MA, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Essex, England. He is an associate professor of sociology at Lehigh University. In the fall of 2021, Cerón Anaya was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS) at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. In the summer of 2023, Cerón Anaya was a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Federal University of Ceará in Fortaleza, Brazil. In 2024 and 2025, Ceron Anaya will be the director of the Lehigh Launch program in Santiago, Chile.

His work has been published in journals such as Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Sociológica-México, Economic Sociology, Journal of Sports and Social Issues, Sociologia del Deporte, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies. In the latter, he published the special issue “Whiteness in Latin America: Everyday Approaches to Racial Privilege.” In 2023, he published “Color de piel humilde, color de piel privilegiada: elites y blancura en América Latina” in Nueva Sociedad.

Ceron-Anaya, H. 2019. Privilege at Play: Class, Race, Gender, and Golf in Mexico. Oxford University Press, New York. 

(“Outstanding Book Award, 2020,” North American Society for the Sociology of Sports)

Ceron-Anaya, H. 2019. “Class, gender, and space: The case of affluent golf clubs in contemporary Mexico City.” Ethnography. Vol. 20(4) 503–522.

Ceron-Anaya, H. “Privilege and Space: An Analysis of Spatial Relations and Social Inequality in Mexico.” Angela Storey and Megan Sheehan (eds.), Global Urban Inequalities: Case Studies on Cultural Development and Change. Lexington Press, 2020. 

Ceron-Anaya, H., Ramos-Zayas, A., and Pinho, P., 2022. “A Conceptual Roadmap for the Study of Whiteness in Latin America,” Special Issue, “Whiteness in Latin America: Everyday Approaches to Racial Privilege,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies (LACES). [Vol. 18 (2). May. 2023]

Fulbright Specialist, 2022. Invitation to work in the Social Science Department, Federal University of Ceará, Brazil. 

Research Fellow, 2021, Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies, Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico.

Teaching

This is a sample of the courses that I have recently taught: 

  • Race and Ethnicity in the Americas
  • A Nation of Immigrants, Sociology of Immigration
  • Sociology of Sports
  • The Sociology of Web Du Bois 
  • The Latin@X Experience