Marcos López

Marcos López joined the faculty at Bowdoin College in 2013. His scholarly interests lie at the intersections of migration, labor and labor movements, political economy, decolonial thought, race/ethnicity, agrarian studies, and social theory.

López received his Ph.D in Sociology with a designated emphasis in Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California. With support from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, he is working on a book-length manuscript, El Agua Calienta: Agrarian Landscapes, Water and the Undercurrents of Indigenous Farmworker Resistance that examines alienation within simplified agrarian landscapes in Baja California and how indigenous migrants, originally from southern Mexico, mobilize their cultural practices to organize for better working conditions and access to water in their settlements. 

López takes great pleasure in his teaching. At Bowdoin he teaches Immigration and the Politics of Exclusion; Food, Agriculture and Social Justice; Latinx in the U.S.; Global Labor Politics; the Classics of Sociological Theory; Introduction to Sociology; and Current Controversies in Sociology. He also has mentored students who have received a number of fellowships, scholarships and awards, such as, the Mellon Mays Fellowship, the Marshall and Truman Scholarships, the Fulbright Distinguished Teaching Award, and the Hispanic Scholar of the Year, awarded by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. 

The son of Mexican migrants, López grew up on a horse-breeding farm in California’s Santa Ynez Valley, where the daily temperature rarely drops to 32 degrees and snowfall is out of the question. He has learned to enjoy actual seasons; ironically, even winter in Maine. However, some things never seem to change. He continues to root for the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s.