A JUMBO ONCE MORE: Tufts Grad and IGL Alumnus Ryan Centner Joins the Tufts Faculty

NEXUS | The IGL Newsletter | Fall 2008

Ten years after graduating, Tufts graduate and Institute for Global Leadership alumnus Ryan Centner has returned to campus, this time in the role of Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology where he also teaches on the sociology of leadership.

A double major in Sociology and International Relations, in his senior year, Ryan participated in the IGL’s EPIIC program, that year focusing on “Exodus and Exile: Refugees, Migration and Global Security.” In 2002 for the Global Inequities year, he was invited back to give a lecture on his thesis in progress.

Although Portland, Oregon, is his hometown, Ryan relocated to San Francisco after graduation. There he spent time working in a law firm and a social policy research firm before beginning a Masters and PhD research program in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Ryan says that his interest in globalization issues was nurtured by his experiences in the EPIIC program, and those interests continued to guide his graduate research. As his studies progressed, Ryan’s interests became more focused on international development and urban sociology.

Eventually, as a result of those areas of focus, his interests turned to Latin America. From 2002 to 2005, Ryan conducted fieldwork in Buenos Aires, Argentina, perfecting his Spanish and witnessing a particularly dynamic time in the city's history. He was drawn to Buenos Aires because it presented a perfect case for studying the intersection of IMF-inspired economic restructuring programs and urban processes in one of the continent's largest cities. Ryan’s research in Buenos Aires looked at how national-level restructuring manifest itself in urban change, especially urban redevelopment.

Ryan has developed a passion for travel and he has explored extensively even beyond his fieldwork in Argentina. He has spent time in several countries throughout Western Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. Most recently, Ryan’s research interests are taking him to Brazil and Turkey. The major metropolises of each country -- Sao Paulo and Istanbul -- will be the basis of a new project over the next several years that compares them to Buenos Aires. Ryan hopes to study how more homegrown identities of "Latin Americanness" in Argentina and Brazil, and resurgent Islamism in Turkey, come into play in shaping these three city landscapes and conflict with overarching geopolitical aims of creating a more European city image.

Currently, Ryan is working on a book manuscript from his dissertation research in Buenos Aires and he is editing a volume on national political shifts and struggles over public space as they affect local social rights across major South American cities. Based on his edited volume he will be convening a workshop during this year's symposium on Global Cities.

Ryan is also enjoying settling into his new role on campus. Ryan is also enjoying settling into his new role on campus. He also arrived in time for EPIIC’s 2008-09 them on “Global Cities: The Urban Century.” He has already lectured to the EPIIC class and is planning to participate in the symposium as well as organize a workshop around the theme of his edited volume.

He is glad to be back at Tufts in this new and different capacity, and he is looking forward to discovering all that has changed in his absence. With his academic interest in cities, Ryan is intrigued by the shifts that have been happening off-campus as well. Among the many changes in Boston during the past decade that Ryan is eager to learn about, he plans to become involved in local research about Boston’s vibrant Brazilian communities.

After ten years, Ryan is glad to be a part of the broader community at Tufts and in Boston once again.