Joseph Palacios (1973)

Liberal Studies and Latin American Studies Programs, Georgetown University

Joseph Palacios (Ph.D. 2001, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley) teaches in Georgetown University's Liberal Studies Program, Sociology Department, and the School of Foreign Service's Latin American Studies Program.  Dr. Palacios brings to his academic career a wide experience in corporate diversity management, community organizing, and religious pastoral work among minorities and immigrants in the United States, Mexico, and Chile.  He is an internationally recognized leader in the development of community-based learning and research programs.

Dr. Palacios is a sociologist of political culture and expert in the area of faith-based community organizing and community service initiatives.  His research interests include: Latin American and Latino Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Political Culture, Civil Society, Social Theory, and Social Justice Analysis.  In the spring of 2007 the University of Chicago Press published his book on faith-based community initiatives, The Catholic Social Imagination: Activism and the Just Society in Mexico and the United States.  In 2005 he was invited to write on "Morality Battles" in Contemporary Sociology and contributed an article entitled "Reconfiguring American Civil Religion: The Triumph of Values."

In 2009 he was awarded a 2009 Fulbright Fellowship for Chile and began working on a book entitled Chilifornia: Chile, Vanguard Latin Nation which highlights Chile's leading role in education, democratic institutions, and economics in Latin America.  He taught a doctoral seminar on "Culture, Religion and Politics in the United States" at the Universidad de Santiago's Institute for Advanced Studies from March through July 2009.  From 2005 to 2009 Dr. Palacios served as the Director of the Georgetown Community-Based Learning Summer Program at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago, Chile. 

Dr. Palacios is a consultant to a variety of human and civil rights organizations. He is on the Board of Directors of The DC Center, the DC Steering Committee and Board of Governors of the Human Rights Campaign, and Director of Catholics for Equality.  He has been a commentator on the Voice of America, C-Span, Univision, Catholic New Service, National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Washington Blade.

Dr. Palacios has been awarded research and teaching fellowships from the University of California, Andrew W. Merrill Foundation, Pew Trust, Georgetown University, and the Fulbright Foundation.  He has been a visiting scholar at El Colegio de Mexico, the Center for Religion and Civic Culture of the University of Southern California, and the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Universidad de Santiago, Chile.  In 2009 he received a Presidential Appointment to serve on the Board of Visitors of the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), the U.S. training facility of Latin American military officers at Fort Benning, GA, that is also known as the School of the Americas.

Dissertation Title
Locating the Social in Social Justice: Social Justice Teaching and Practice in the American and Mexican Catholic Churches
Dissertation Book Title
The Catholic Social Imagination: Activism and the Just Society in Mexico and the United States",2007"
The University of Chicago Press
Entry Year