Diego Alonso Ramírez Pérez is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Research on Social Change, at UC Berkeley (January 2026-January 2027). He is a PhD candidate at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile, and a law lecturer at Universidad Diego Portales. His publications have appeared in Social Movement Studies, Constellations, and Latin American Legal Studies
At UC Berkeley, Diego will develop research on legal mobilization and institutional change, combining social theory with empirical analysis of how marginalized communities use law to transform property regimes. His dissertation examines Chile's water movement MODATIMA, analyzing how activists translated political demands into legal claims—reframing water conflicts from technical property disputes into constitutional debates about the right to water.
Diego's current research focuses on two interconnected questions: First, how legal mobilization operates as a mechanism of democratic participation when social movements engage legal institutions. Second, how legal framing can produce backfire effects—moments when juridical strategies undermine movements' political legitimacy or democratic standing. Drawing on extensive documentary analysis and sociolegal theory, his work explores the tensions between legal specification and moral denunciation in contentious politics. He looks forward to engaging with Berkeley scholars working on environmental justice, property rights, and social movements in the Global South.
