Daniela Alday Rubio

My name is Daniela Alday Rubio, and I’m from Mendoza, Argentina. My path to academia has not been a traditional one. After finishing school, I worked as a cook for almost ten years, living in Brazil, Bilbao, and Barcelona. The cultural and social contrasts I experienced during those years led me to reflect deeply on the structural and cultural differences shaping people’s lives across societies. This questioning ultimately motivated me to leave my life in Spain, return to Argentina, and pursue a degree in Sociology at the National University of Cuyo.

Since then, I have been involved in academic research, guided by an interdisciplinary understanding of knowledge as a collective endeavour. My work has covered diverse fields such as social structure analysis for policy making, studies on social struggle and populism, drug policies, and Abya Yala and feminist philosophy and epistemology.

Currently, I am researching the new expression of the right-wing movements in Latin America and their relationship with populism and social struggle. My approach lies at the intersection of political sociology, political economy, comparative political science, and critical theory, seeking to understand how power, ideology, and resistance are reconfigured in contemporary democracies.

My greatest aspiration is to become a university professor. I chose the MSc in Latin American Studies precisely for its interdisciplinary nature, as it allows me to explore these questions through the lenses of political science, political economy, and international relations. I see this programme as a collective space of dialogue, where I can learn from my peers and tutors while putting into practice a true exchange of knowledges — in full confidence of the premise that guides me: the transformative power of knowledge.

Research interests: Political sociology; political economy; neoliberalism; populism; dedemocratisation process; right-wing movements; Latin American politics; critical theory; feminist thought.