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Raul Pacheco-Vega

@raulpachecovega.bsky.social

Full Professor @ FLACSO Mexico. I study comparative public policy, water governance, waste management, public administration, environmental politics, homelessness, eldercare and care work, mixed/experimental methods.

8,366 Followers  |  1,058 Following  |  2,412 Posts  |  Joined: 10.08.2023
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Posts by Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpachecovega.bsky.social)

I am flabbergasted and miffed that none of you threw in a “verklempt”, or an “erstwhile” and there was only one “cantankerous”:

03.03.2026 23:11 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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JOB ADVERTISEMENT-POSSIBILITÉ D’EMPLOI #CPSA_ACSPJobs
🔴Assist Prof in Politics 8-month term position
⏰Mar 9 2026
👉 conta.cc/4rAZAAN
@raulpachecovega.bsky.social
#polisci
@csnrec.bsky.social
#cdnpoli
#PoliSciTwitter
@jonathanmalloy.bsky.social
@emmettmacfarlane.com

03.03.2026 20:45 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1

Should/can/is it advisable for ethnographers to study their own city/region/country?

Discuss.

03.03.2026 23:09 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Writing Field Notes and Using Them to Prompt Scholarly Writing - Raul Pacheco-Vega, 2019

#RPVQual #RPVMethods

This is one of my most cited methods-specific articles and it's #Free2DownloadAndRead

"Writing Field Notes and Using Them to Prompt Scholarly Writing"

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

In which I argue that we may use field-notes to break free from "writer's block".

03.03.2026 12:21 — 👍 6    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Yes, it is true that the other article exists, and I am about to download it, but the metadata is entirely wrong in the previous one.

03.03.2026 11:24 — 👍 6    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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And this is why you should ALWAYS check when reference managers import metadata (as you can tell, these two articles, if the second one exists, are related in topic but definitely NOT the same):

(I call this process "Cleaning References")

03.03.2026 11:18 — 👍 13    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

Thank you!

03.03.2026 10:55 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thanks, Marc!

03.03.2026 10:55 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Sarah E. Parkinson @separkinson.bsky.social is an absolute superstar. I'll check the other references too, thank you Sebastian.

(it's late at night in Mexico City and I am trying desperately to finish a paper so apologies for responding until now).

03.03.2026 04:31 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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a picture of jerry from tom and jerry with the words * tsk tsk tsk * ALT: a picture of jerry from tom and jerry with the words * tsk tsk tsk *

JEFF...

03.03.2026 04:28 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Folks, #ICanHazPDF please?

bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...

raul(.)pacheco(-)vega(@)flacso(.)edu(.)mx

Yes, I am on the editorial board and I should have access, but I am working late and need it like, ASAP.

03.03.2026 04:27 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I don’t think she is on blue sky but Dr. Christiana Zenner has a ridiculously ample vocabulary and coauthoring with her has improved my own writing.

03.03.2026 01:32 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Books? Free download and read? In this economy?

YES, PLEASE!

09.06.2025 10:48 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Oh geez that word sounds like 50 USD

03.03.2026 01:29 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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a cat with big eyes is saying im sorry .. ALT: a cat with big eyes is saying im sorry ..
03.03.2026 01:27 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I keep thinking that eschatological means related to shit and I’m like “why would I want anything to do with shit?”

(Reader: I study the governance of toilets).

03.03.2026 01:25 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Mike!!!!

03.03.2026 01:24 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Recommend recent (2020-to date) monographs that use ethnography as a method. I'm looking for books that examine empirical cases where data collection is done (completely or partially) using ethnography, NOT ethnography textbooks.

03.03.2026 00:36 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 4    📌 0

It’s been a while, so quote this skeet with your favourite $20 dollar word.

I’m going to start in hopes you all y’all escalate:

- inchoate
- perfunctory
- epiphenomenal

Now you all y’all go:

02.03.2026 21:21 — 👍 93    🔁 7    💬 79    📌 117

I do not ascribe to the Taylorization of academic work.

Yes, it would probably great to be able to write 200 papers a year, but what would those be, then?

I want to be able to advance new ideas and thoughts and I would prefer if those were mine, even if I build upon others' work too.

02.03.2026 17:52 — 👍 10    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

I am struggling to write a paper.

I WANT to struggle. Yes, I could throw ideas and stuff at various LLMs, but then I wouldn't be able to produce the material I want to and it wouldn't have my actual voice.

Moreover, I want the cognitive gains of reading, making sense of other's ideas and mine.

02.03.2026 17:50 — 👍 27    🔁 1    💬 3    📌 0
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Reminder: Comments Due March 2 to Protect Public Health Degrees Submit your comments to protect public health degrees before the March 2 deadline. Your voice is crucial for our workforce.

Reminder: Comments Due TODAY to Protect Public Health Degrees

Regarding the proposed exclusion of the Master of Public Health (MPH) and Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from the definition of a professional degree; resources and templates are available from ASPPH here: aspph.org/reminder-com...

02.03.2026 15:37 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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This paragraph, by Carole McGranahan, encapsulates my main beef with LLMs and writing.

“Writing is a commitment to people”, says Jason DeLeon, quoted by McGranahan. Why, then, are we so eager to outsource this commitment to a piece of software?

02.03.2026 04:10 — 👍 40    🔁 14    💬 1    📌 0
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Table of contents:

02.03.2026 04:00 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Amid the turmoil, Sam Beyda, a 24-year-old who has never previously worked in public health, has assumed a prominent role at the agency, according to current and former officials.
While at the CDC, O'Neill was often absent, those officials said, and he deputized Beyda to run much of the agency's day-to-day operations for him, people familiar with the matter said. Beyda, a 2023 graduate of Columbia University, is based in Washington, D.C., but frequently travels to the CDC's Atlanta headquarters.
An internal document in November listed Beyda as leading five of 16 new strategic initiatives, including updating the CDC's agencywide response to outbreaks and crises, downsizing animal research and enhancing surveillance of novel pathogens.
Some longtime CDC staffers have credited Beyda with being a quick study and making an effort to ask questions and learn on the
ioh Ona coninr novear And ofniol enid Pando

Amid the turmoil, Sam Beyda, a 24-year-old who has never previously worked in public health, has assumed a prominent role at the agency, according to current and former officials. While at the CDC, O'Neill was often absent, those officials said, and he deputized Beyda to run much of the agency's day-to-day operations for him, people familiar with the matter said. Beyda, a 2023 graduate of Columbia University, is based in Washington, D.C., but frequently travels to the CDC's Atlanta headquarters. An internal document in November listed Beyda as leading five of 16 new strategic initiatives, including updating the CDC's agencywide response to outbreaks and crises, downsizing animal research and enhancing surveillance of novel pathogens. Some longtime CDC staffers have credited Beyda with being a quick study and making an effort to ask questions and learn on the ioh Ona coninr novear And ofniol enid Pando

But others say Beyda isn't qualified for a senior role that is often filled by someone
with a master's in public health or years of experience in the federal government.
Beyda executed January's widespread grant cuts to state and local health departments that the CDC then quickly rescinded, people familiar with the matter said. The administration moved forward about two weeks later with roughly $600 million in grant cuts to four states led by Democrats, a move now held up in court. Beyda was also deeply involved in a chaotic wave of firings at the CDC during the October government shutdown, according to people familiar with the matter, which saw more than a thousand employees laid off only for hundreds to later be reinstated.
Beyda is one of at least a dozen political appointees at the agency, representing a larger number than in previous administrations, according to two current employees. The new political appointees wield significant power over the CDC's

But others say Beyda isn't qualified for a senior role that is often filled by someone with a master's in public health or years of experience in the federal government. Beyda executed January's widespread grant cuts to state and local health departments that the CDC then quickly rescinded, people familiar with the matter said. The administration moved forward about two weeks later with roughly $600 million in grant cuts to four states led by Democrats, a move now held up in court. Beyda was also deeply involved in a chaotic wave of firings at the CDC during the October government shutdown, according to people familiar with the matter, which saw more than a thousand employees laid off only for hundreds to later be reinstated. Beyda is one of at least a dozen political appointees at the agency, representing a larger number than in previous administrations, according to two current employees. The new political appointees wield significant power over the CDC's

Letting a 24 year old lead hundreds of millions of grants cuts at CDC…

02.03.2026 03:24 — 👍 242    🔁 82    💬 5    📌 10
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Turmoil Takes Hold at CDC as Top Officials Keep Leaving Trump plans to nominate a new director at the nation’s top health agency following months of upheaval.

Inside the turmoil and leadership vacuum at the CDC

The Trump administration intends to nominate a permanent director soon

One person already turned the job down

NEW [gift link] www.wsj.com/health/healt...

02.03.2026 03:00 — 👍 125    🔁 48    💬 1    📌 4

Yes, admittedly the authors’ list almost in its entirety reads like a WHO Is A Friend of Raul Pacheco-Vega, but that’s because I have A LOT of talented anthropologist writers as friends 😊

02.03.2026 03:47 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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#RPVBooks Whenever I teach a writing workshop, regardless of the discipline(s) whom I’m teaching, I ALWAYS recommend Carole McGranahan’s edited volume.

02.03.2026 03:47 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

tech stuff that is very bad that isn't generative AI

- Betting markets
- Camera glasses (Meta)
- Fascist doorbell cameras
- Driverless cars clogging up cities
- EVs are still getting bigger -> makes them deadlier, more polluting (through more power consumption)
- Streaming death spiral

01.03.2026 21:50 — 👍 359    🔁 81    💬 14    📌 4
Public Health Under Attack: Continuity, Discontinuity, and History | Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law | Duke University Press

My new article in @jhppl.bsky.social situates the current attacks on public health in a historical perspective.

What I found surprised me. We've seen this before, and it's not as unprecedented as it feels.

Thanks to @sarahgollust.bsky.social @oberlanderunc.bsky.social for editing! Read free below.

01.03.2026 22:09 — 👍 19    🔁 10    💬 0    📌 1