Usdin L Martínez

Usdin Martínez (he/him) is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University. His research focuses on land politics, postcolonial thought, and the politics of time in Latin America. He is interested in how struggles over territory and natural resources are shaped by competing temporalities (such as colonial legacies, extractive cycles, and development agendas) and how these influence claims to justice and political belonging. Alongside his theoretical work, Usdin has conducted applied research on the impacts of extractive industries and collaborated with local NGOs to design gender-informed educational tools that promote agricultural sustainability. He holds an MA from Northwestern and a BA in Political Science and Economics from Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia).

My teaching philosophy uses political theory as a tool to help students critically examine the power relations and normative assumptions that shape public life. I focus on building core skills through close reading exercises, seminar style debate, and research projects that invite students to connect course material with their own practice or lived experience. I enjoy working with students through different social science approaches to the study of land politics, as well as film, photography, and sound related to processes of territorial change, discussing how these materials can be placed in conversation (or in tension) with one another.