Jesús Guanche Pérez

Prominent academic, Doctor in Historical Sciences, specialty in Cultural Anthropology, Full Professor and Researcher and Bachelor of Arts in Art History. He was a Member of the Board of Directors of the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, as well as Coordinator of the Section of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba (2000-2016). Currently, he serves as Academic at Hebei University of International Studies, Shijiazhuang, China.

He is professor and lecturer at the following universities in Cuba: Superior Institute of Art, University of La Habana, Central University of Las Villas, Villa Clara; Superior Pedagogical Institute "Enrique José Varona", La Habana; Superior Pedagogical Institute "José de la Luz y Caballero", Holguín; University of Holguín, "Oscar Lucero Moya"; University of Cienfuegos "Carlos Rafael Rodríguez"; Polytechnic Institute of Cienfuegos; Camilo Cienfuegos University, Matanzas and University "Ignacio Agramonte" of Camagüey, from 1981 to 2023.

He is professor and lecturer at the following universities in other countries: Brazil: Museum of Contemporary Art; China: Hebei University of International Studies, Tangshan Normal University and North China Aerospace Engineering Institute, in Langfang; Colombia: "Francisco José de Caldas" District University, Bogotá, University of Cartagena of the Indies; Spain: Autonomous University of Barcelona, "Alberto Colao" University, Cartagena; University of Extremadura; University of La Laguna, Tenerife; University of Las Palmas, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; University of Oviedo, Asturias; University of Zaragoza, Aragón; University of Seville, Andalucía; United States: Hampshire College, Illinois; Pennsylvania State University; Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania; Johns Hopkins University, Maryland; University of Notre Dame, Indiana; University of Georgia, Atlanta; University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Harvard University, Massachusetts; University of Oklahoma; Rutgers University in New Jersey; Trinity College, Connecticut; Whittier College, Southern California, Los Angeles; Italy: University of Turin and University of Rome; Norway: University of Oslo; United Kingdom: University of Edinburgh, University of Aberystwyth; Dominican Republic: Pontifical University Madre y Maestra, Santiago de los Caballeros and Catholic University Santo Domingo; Russia: Diplomatic Academy of Moscow; Mexico, National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Autonomous University of Chapingo, Technological University of Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla; Nicaragua: National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), Managua; Poland: Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Warsaw; Venezuela: University of Oriente, Cumaná; Simón Bolívar University, Estado Bolívar; Central University of Venezuela, Caracas; Experimental University of Guayana, El Callao; National Experimental University of Yaracuy; Switzerland: Ethnology Seminar of the University of Zurich, from 1983-2021.

He has worked as Full Researcher of the Research and Development Center for Cuban Music (CIDMUC) of the Cuban Institute of Music, Ministry of Culture, from 1987-1997; Full Researcher and Member of the Board of Directors of the Fernando Ortiz Foundation, from 1997-2016; Full Professor of the Faculty of Spanish for Non-Spanish Speakers (FENHI), of the University of La Habana and Full Researcher and President of the Scientific Council of the Cuban Institute of Anthropology from 2016-2018.

Career
His monographs on Ethnocultural Processes of Cuba, Ethnic Components of the Cuban Nation, Traditional Popular Culture, Popular Religiosity, Transculturation and Africanity, Africanity and Ethnicity in Cuba, Intercultural Lexicon and Cultural Heritage, among other topics, form a solid and exceptional bibliography that reveals the essence of the Cuban nation. He is also the author of more than 400 works published in Cuba and abroad on various aspects of Cuban culture and its ethnohistorical characteristics.

As a lecturer and professor, he is known in most countries of Latin America and in a good number of European countries.

He has participated in more than 400 scientific events on Sociocultural Anthropology and History of Culture. He has been a member of the expert group of the collective of authors of the Ethnographic Atlas of Cuba. Traditional Popular Culture, of the Atlas of Instruments of Folkloric-Popular Music of Cuba and of the Dictionary of Spanish and Spanish-American Music. He is Scholar of Merit of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, Member of Number of the Academy of History of Cuba; of the Committee of Collaborators of the International Folklore Bibliography, from the University of Bremen, Germany; Member of the Ibero-American Association of Anthropologists in Network (AIBR), Madrid, Spain and Member of the Network China & Latin America. Multidisciplinary Approaches, Chile.

He has been a consultant for UNESCO in Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. He has been President of the Permanent Court for Scientific Degrees of Doctor in Sciences in Art and of the court for Scientific Degrees of Doctor in Historical Sciences.

Awards and Honors
Many of his books have been awarded, among them the Annual Awards for Cultural Research in 1997, 2001 and 2004-2005 from the Ministry of Culture of Cuba, Award of Scientific and Technical Criticism awarded by the Cuban Institute of the Book in 2009 and 2015, and that of Americanist Research (1994), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, among others.

He possesses the Distinction for National Culture, is a distinguished son of the City of La Habana, Outstanding Educator of the Twentieth Century in Cuba and Distinguished Member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Project[1], The Routes of Enslaved Persons, Resistance, Freedom and Heritage. His relevant work and intellectual projection in Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe make him worthy of these awards.

He received a Special Recognition awarded by the University of Camagüey, in consideration of his personal contribution to the development of Higher Education in the territory.

In the year 2013 he was awarded the National Prize for Cultural Research. The award was presented to him on December 17 of that year at the headquarters of the Juan Marinello Cuban Institute of Cultural Research. During the presentation ceremony, Fernando Martínez Heredia stated: "It is a great honor for us today to honor Jesús Guanche with the Cultural Research Award for his life's work, because Guanche is one of the most outstanding intellectuals of our country. His work constitutes one of the main pillars for the knowledge of the people we are and his life is a formidable example of industriousness, perseverance, superior capacity as a researcher, intellectual honesty and exemplary modesty".

The then UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, recognizes him as "Distinguished Member of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Project The Routes of Enslaved Persons: Resistance, Freedom and Heritage", during the period 2011-2015 (Paris, October 12, 2015).

On January 11, 2018, he received the Order "Carlos J. Finlay" from the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba for his contribution to scientific activity.

From the hands of the governor of Hebei, he was presented with the medal and accrediting plaque of the Yanzhao Friendship Award, awarded by the government of the province of Hebei, People's Republic of China: "To thank your enthusiastic support in the construction of our province and your energetic contribution to friendship and cooperation", on December 9, 2020.

A representative portion of his work appears in international databases such as: ORCID, Web of Science ResearcherID, ResearchGate, SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online, Dialnet Plus, Academia edu and Zenodo.