Leonidas

Leonidas Oikonomakis holds a Ph.d in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI).He currently holds a Marie Sklodowska Curie Postdoctoral Individual Fellowship at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.  He is also  affiliated with the Center on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at the Scuola Normale Superiore. In the past he has held research and teaching positions  at the the Department of Anthropology , Durham University (COFUND Marie Curie Junior Research Fellow), the Department of Sociology, University of Crete (adj. lecturer)  and  the Hellenic Open University (lecturer at MA program  Social and Solidarity Economy  and BA in Spanish Language and Culture (teaching Latin American History) . 

His research and teaching focuses on Latin American politics, social movements, autonomy, revolutions, electoral politics, development, and the commons. He is also a rapper with hip-hop formation Social Waste, and used to be a member of the editorial collective of ROAR Magazine. He is the author of the  monograph Political Strategies and Social Movements in Latin America: The Zapatistas and Bolivian Cocaleros (Palgrave- Latin American Studies  Series), and has published articles in international peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited volumes on social movements in Latin America and Southern Europe. His latest book was also translated in Greek under the title “Σαν το Ζαπάτα και τον Τσε; Οι Ζαπατίστας και οι Βολιβιάνοι κοκαλέρος” and was published in 2020 by Akyvernites Politeies publishing cooperative (currently in 3nd edition). He has also published an ethnographic novel (together with Dimitris Dalakoglou), called Skouries, illustrated by Apostolis -Kotsifas-Blackbird -Ioannou.

Besides his native Greek and English, his articles have been translated into French, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Bosnian, Dutch, Slovak and Turkish. 

He has appeared for interviews on Russia Today, RadioStudent Slovenia,  on Channel 9  Bolivia, and on PRI The World, and Medium while he regularly comments for several national and international publications like BBC, CNBC, Moscow News, Kommersant, Vice News, and Buzzfeed.

Leonidas is happy to respond to media requests to speak about current Latin American and Greek politics. Contact him at: leonidas.oikonomakis at eui.eu , l.oikonomakis at vu.nl  or l.oikonomakis at uoc.gr