ENAH interim director appointed for 2023

With 14 votes and one abstention, in extraordinary session the Technical Council of the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), chose the anthropologist Jose Luis Castrejon Caballero as interim director during this 2023 starting on Sunday, January 15.

This happened after the researcher Hilario Topete Lara presented his resignation letter as director of the school last December and it was accepted by the head of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Diego Prieto Hernández, who was in charge of proposing Castrejón Caballero as a replacement.

Upon accepting the commission, it was announced that the elected interim director of the ENAH will seek to fulfill the commitments that have already been made, particularly on the occasion of the celebrations this year of the 85th anniversary of this educational institution, as well as to collaborate in the search for better working conditions for the academic and administrative staff of the study center.

More about the chosen one

José Luis Castrejón Caballero has a degree in Mathematics from the Faculty of Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and has a specialty in Applied Statistics from the Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y Sistemas (IIMAS), as well as a master’s degree in Statistics and Operations Research, all from the highest house of studies, as well as a master’s degree in Physical Anthropology from the ENAH and a doctorate in Population Studies from El Colegio de México.

In 2001, Castrejón Caballero was appointed Professor-Researcher C in Physical Anthropology at ENAH and from 2012 to 2015 he was a Level 1 member of the National Research System (SNI). Between 2006 and 2007, the aforementioned carried out a research stay at the Center for Demographic Studies of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

As part of his responsibility as interim director of the ENAH, Jose Luis Castrejon Caballero must organize the audit process to elect a new director of the institution for the period 2024-2027.

José Luis Castrejón Caballero was appointed interim director of ENAH. Photo EE: Courtesy

Defense of eventual ENAH

An event that marked the direction of the outgoing Hilario Topete at ENAH happened precisely one year ago, when the researcher sent a letter addressed to Diego Prieto Hernández to defend the relevance of the rehiring of temporary workers from this educational institution by 2022, this , after the INAH Administrative Secretariat issued a letter in which it said:

“No person who has been hired as temporary staff as of December 31, 2021 should be called to work, as long as their eventual hiring has not been approved by the National Coordination of Human Resources.”

In his position addressed to the head of the INAH, Topete Lara pointed out that “if the instruction issued by the INAH Administrative Secretariat not to rehire temporary personnel would be fulfilled, more than 60 activities would cease to be carried out and the campus would be paralyzed.”

Money, the theme of each year

The problem of hiring temporary workers in the different areas of the cultural sector, including in the INAHis an issue derived from administrative processes and budget deficit that have dragged on from previous administrations.

For the specific case of the ENAHin recent years the voices of protest have increased within the academic and student community against the minimal budgetary conditions that precarious essential activities in the ENAH due to lack of resources to support research and publication on cultural and anthropological issues.

For the fiscal year of 2023, the National Institute of Anthropology and History was assigned 4,739 million pesos, that is, a little more than 700 million additional to the budget exercised by this institute last year.

Just over half of this increase will be used for the “Provisions for the acquisition of land in Archaeological Zones” program, which replaces the extinct Trust for the Promotion and Conservation of the Cultural, Anthropological and Archaeological Heritage of Mexico (Fideinah).

But another part of the increase for the INAH will be precisely for the Higher Education and Postgraduate Services program, which will go from 666 million pesos to 752 million this year. Practically all the increase in this way, as can be seen in the breakdowns of the 2023 Federation Expenditure Budget Project, will be used to subsidize the payroll of the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH).

The INAH budget since 2018: