Let Us Get to Know Rafael Antonio Duran Rodriguez

Rafael Antonio Duran Rodriguez is Dominican, a sociologist from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, where he has taught different subjects since 1989. He holds a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Contemporary Social Processes in a Globalized Society from the University of the Basque Country. At that same university he completed a master's degree in Globalization, Social Processes and Economic Policy.

Can you tell us about any project you are currently working on or have worked on recently?

At the moment I am working on several things, one of which has an academic character and the others are oriented toward professional work, although they overlap. The academic one is directly linked to my doctoral thesis: it focuses on an analysis of the participation of the group of descendants of Haitian origin in the Dominican labor market. To do this I am using the two databases of the national immigrant surveys, ENI 2012 and ENI 2017, for the descriptive part, along with a broad theoretical and contextual review of assimilation and integration processes in the countries where these cases have been most studied. I think this will help provide a more complete reflection on descendant groups in an analysis that can be empirically justified by the rigor of the two surveys in the Dominican Republic, as they were designed for comparability of their results.

What was most interesting about that project and how does it apply to your professional practice?

There are several things that can be highlighted. One is that work remains one of the main, though not the only, elements of integration, including the organization of social life, because it is the basis of the productive economy. The second concerns the importance of building human capital among descendant groups so that they can improve their participation in the labor market, which allows them to improve their income. The third is linked to the effort and support that must be given to descendants and migrants in general to create awareness among national groups that we cannot have a group of Dominicans who are socially excluded due to ethnic origin. This knowledge has improved my professional practice because it has broadened my understanding of economic migration in such a sensitive context as that of the Dominican Republic.

Can you tell us about your experience as an associated researcher at OBMICA?

My formal link with OBMICA began in 2018, when OBMICA approached me to request that I put into practice my experience as a researcher in the ENI-2017. That request, to be a guest author in the OBMICA yearbook, was a challenge because it required making a very concise summary of the broad results contained in the Final Report produced by that survey, in addition to the care needed not to anticipate a series of prospective complementary studies at that time. The experience has been very positive because one learns to make a balanced summary to avoid sensitive groups in Dominican society distorting the analyses made in each chapter of the yearbook.

An important point is that the researcher has complete freedom to work on each topic, although there is a general scheme that helps organize the presentation of the chapter. The way of approaching it is left to the researcher, which offers each person the opportunity to put their analytical creativity into practice. Another important aspect is the reciprocal support within the team so that each person can have essential information that could not otherwise be obtained. It is also necessary to highlight the honor that it represents to be part of an institution like OBMICA with broad ties in the world of migration.