De Borinken al mundo
Armen Álvarez · Ph.D., M.D.Y., M.S.
Postdoctoral Fellow · Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs
Western Michigan University
Architect of Bombazo Epistemology, a decolonial qualitative methodology rooted in the Puerto Rican Bomba tradition and the ceremonial knowledge of El Batey.
El batey no cierra. Continúa.
Scholarly agenda
I am a transdisciplinary qualitative methodologist. My work holds one question across public institutions and cultural forms: how power is organized to decide who is permitted to know, to be seen, and to be sovereign, and how that arrangement can be named, contested, and undone so that the peoples it subordinates are emancipated.
From this center, I study the constitutional, fiscal, and colonial architectures that produce educational inequality and non-sovereignty across U.S. continental and territorial contexts, and I develop qualitative methodology that treats community and embodied knowledge as a legitimate archive of evidence.
Signature contribution
Bombazo Epistemology is the ways of knowing of today's Puerto Ricans, born of a sociological process of Negros libertos and Taíno people of Borinken who endured colonization and genocide. It is a methodology that thinks beyond the boundaries of the academy in order to represent the sovereignty of community-based knowledge, and it intentionally speaks truth to power. First articulated in the doctoral dissertation Bombazo Epistemology: A Syllabus of Survival (Illinois State University, 2023), it now anchors a growing body of peer-reviewed work and two books in development.
Taíno people and Indigenous people from Africa built knowledge systems in Puerto Rico through five centuries of collaboration. The drums themselves carry both technologies.
Art operates as analysis. Each drumbeat carries data, each movement performs interpretation, each call and response verifies what the community knows.
Community functions as peer review. Truth is established through consensus in real time, witnessed and validated by those present in the circle.
Each bombazo begins, and continues with the next.
Selected scholarship
Honors & recognition
AAHHE Best Scholarly Paper Award, American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education
David L. Clark National Graduate Student Research Seminar Fellow
UCEA Barbara L. Jackson Scholar, University Council for Educational Administration
Guest, White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics
Honoree, Latina Exitosa, Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois
Scholar, Aspen Ideas Festival, The Aspen Institute
Grants & funded projects
Across a career spanning federal agencies, national nonprofits, and university administration, I have secured, directed, or mobilized more than fifty million dollars in federal and private funding for education, arts, and family engagement.
Consulting services
I bring the same standard to consulting that I bring to scholarship: work that is trustworthy, accurate, and accountable to the communities it serves. Every engagement is bilingual by design, English and Spanish, and grounded in a documented record of delivery.
Proposal development, competitive priority drafting, submission, implementation, compliance, and reporting for federal and private funders, backed by a record above $50 million including a $13.7 million GEAR UP award and a $12 million portfolio directed end to end.
Culturally sustaining curriculum design and instructional supervision for schools, districts, and universities, from K-12 arts programming engaging 4,000 students to graduate seminars and leader preparation.
Research design consulting, methodological advisement, and doctoral mentorship through Bombazo Epistemology and decolonial qualitative inquiry, including dissertation committee service and methods workshops.
Invited talks and interactive tallers on decolonial methodology, epistemic justice, and educational sovereignty, delivered at venues from the Oxford Round Table to an AERA Presidential Session and FLACSO-Ecuador.
Program design and coalition building at national scale: engagement initiatives across thirteen U.S. cities, ten urban coalitions chartered, and the first Spanish-language Congress of National PTA.
Equity-centered evaluation and policy analysis on territorial education, the Insular Cases, PROMESA, and school finance, translating constitutional architecture into actionable findings.
Board leadership, organizational restructuring, and strategic planning, including service as Board Chair of a charter network generating more than $24 million in annual revenue.
Cross-cultural adaptation of curricula and training for Spanish, French, and Portuguese-speaking audiences, drawing on global education program leadership across 89 countries.
Equity-centered frameworks for AI adoption, procurement analysis, and digital-age instructional supervision for K-12 systems and higher education administration.
Tell me what your community, institution, or team is trying to build. We will name it together and get it funded, designed, and delivered.
Request a consultationSelected invited talks
Contact
For consulting inquiries, speaking invitations, and collaborations, write to me directly. For scholarly correspondence, my institutional address and ORCID record are below.