Background
Professor Vélez-Ibáñez's work centers on one
basic question: How do we as a species manage to survive the enormous
stresses of global, national, regional, and local pressures and
constraints to live out our lives in a relatively humane manner. The
question has underlain all his academic work in urban Mexico, in the
Southwestern United States, and in Puerto Rico. He asks more specific
questions about the development of cultural "funds of knowledge" as
modifiers at different levels: household, community, region, and in
non-physical localities. This interest is also tied to questions of
adaptation, the distribution of sadness, the emergence of social
networks and language change, economic and technical shifts within the
structure of households, and the migration of human populations.
Professor Vélez-Ibáñez is also interested in the
application of knowledge for the benefit of those populations with whom
we work.