Talk:Santiago Castro-Gómez

Notability
Thank you, Kvng, for your comment. In response to concerns about notability listed on WP:PROF, Santiago Castro-Gómez is a professor, director of a well-known institute, and public intellectual who meets the following criteria (and possibly others: 1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. 4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions. 6. The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society. 7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity. If you search for Santiago Castro-Gómez on Google or Youtube, you will find countless articles and videos about him, although the majority will be in Spanish. In the national context, his Institute does public outreach to children in public schools and circulates popular publications on the topic of the effects of colonization and racism in society. Just because the vast amount of information about him online is in Spanish rather than English does not mean he is not an internationally notable scholar. It is rather because his work specifically addresses the South American context and, specifically, issues of colonization, capitalism, and inequality on that continent. Currently many works by Castro-Gómez are being translated into English, another sign of his notability.

I will update the article, selecting only the best sources for reference, in line with the potential concerns marked in the comment. Thanks again - Nietzschemarxfoucault (talk) 10:41, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * For any of the WP:NPROF points that you think are satisfied, you'll need to provide an assertion and evidence in the article. I want to focus on #6. I didn't see anything about the subject holding a high administrative post at a major institution. What are you referring to here?
 * Please have a look at WP:RELIABLE. YouTube videos are not what we're looking for with WP:THREE. You're welcome to include this stuff if it help supports information in the article. There is also not a problem using foreign sources though you should appreciate that they are more difficult for volunteer reviewers to evaluate.
 * From the 22 sources already included in the draft, can you respond here and identify the WP:THREE most WP:RELIABLE ones. ~Kvng (talk) 13:20, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello Kvng, thank you for the clarification.

- I listed number 6 because he is Director of the Pensar Institute (https://institutopensar.javeriana.edu.co/instituto), which is a well-known (academic and public) institute affiliated with a major university in Bogota. He may well be or have been Chair of Philosophy or Cultural Studies at the university as well (I'm not sure). If the former isn't sufficient to meet criterion 7, please let me know why and of course that number can be discarded. Either way, there is incredibly strong evidence (already outlined in the article with good sources) to support 1, 4, and 7. How many criteria does an academic need to meet?

- I mentioned that there is a plethora of information on Castro-Gomez in Spanish, and only referenced Youtube in passing as something that will come up in a search (not as a source or as an authority). As you'll see, I tried to provide only English language sources (if at all possible) to make the references easier to verify (even though there are far more in Spanish, which I could include as well).

- Yes, I am happy to provide three reliable sources that speak directly to the criteria in question. The first would be an academic book devoted to his work, with his name in the title and his image on the cover (http://www.cenaltesediciones.cl/index.php/ediciones/catalog/book/25); this would pertain to criterion #1. The second would be this (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274561721_Dialogue_on_Modernity_and_Modern_Education_in_Dispute) or this (http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1900-65862018000100123&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en) article, both of which are written in English, and which testify to his significance in higher eduction (#4). The third would be this work of art and performance based on his scholarship (https://www.prabapilar.com/decolonizing), with a description in English, which testifies to his impact outside of academia (#7).

- Thank you for you reviewing these and the article, and please let me know whether and, if so, why they do not meet the criteria in question. Nietzschemarxfoucault (talk) 18:38, 1 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I don't think #6 applies here. I don't think the institute qualifies as a major institution. I do see some highly cited work in a Scholar search. This is promising. I'll be back to take a closer look later. ~Kvng (talk) 19:17, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Ok, Kvng, please scratch number 6 then. I believe 1, 4 and 7 are all criteria that are clearly met. Yes, he is a highly cited author. Thank you for reviewing. Nietzschemarxfoucault (talk) 09:52, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I have visited Scopus (h-index 3) and Google Scholar (unlisted) and I can't make #1 work based on what I'm finding there. Applying #4 and #7 is more subjective. The subject only needs to meet one of these criteria, however. I can try to accept the article but there's a good chance someone will nominate it for deletion and I would not be able to defend it. ~Kvng (talk) 14:10, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Kvng, for trying to accept the article. I am familiar with Google Scholar and believe that not having a profile only means that the scholar in question has not been "verified" by going onto the site and registering an email address themselves. Thus it would seem imperfect to gauge the influence of someone who has not registered themselves on the site -- specifically, a scholar who does not work in the US or Europe, who does not write in English (though many of his articles and books recently have been or are being translated now), and who perhaps does not work in a system where Google Scholar is any kind of norm. I am unfamiliar with Scopus, though I do wonder about its adequacy and its scope (say, beyond English) if, as you noted, the author has publications with over 800 citations. I appreciate you checking both of these sites for the review, though, and thank you for trying to get it accepted so that information about highly influential non-English speaking scholars is more readily accessible on important sources of knowledge like Wikipedia. Nietzschemarxfoucault (talk) 16:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The low rating with Scopus is based on 5 publications so shouldn't be trusted. There are many issues with GS discussed at WP:NPROF but I was not aware that author registration was required in order to be tracked here. Just because we don't see clear evidence of notability in these databases doesn't mean the draft has to be rejected. The primary criteria for acceptance here is that the article has to be assessed to have a better than 50% chance of being kept in a deletion discussion. I'm certain that a deletion discussion would be interesting but I don't have a lot of experience with articles on academic subjects so I can't give an accurate assessment here. I will ask for help. ~Kvng (talk) 18:08, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying about Google Scholar and Scopus, Kvng; I agree that they are not relevant sources for this criteria for those reasons. Though I am not anywhere as experienced with Wiki as you, I do believe that this article has a 50% chance of being kept in such a discussion. This belief is due to 1) the information/sources I listed above and that are included in the article itself; 2) the highly cited work in a Scholar search (as opposed to "his own page") that you mentioned; and 3) the fact that almost all of his co-authors and colleagues in the "Modernity/Coloniality" group he co-founded (which given its impact should also have a page in English; see for example the Spanish page) have pages. See the list in the article: Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, Enrique Dussel, Ramón Grosfoguel, Catherine Walsh, Arturo Escobar, Edgardo Lander and Nelson Maldonado-Torres. If Wikipedia provides public knowledge about the work of extremely influential scholars on an international (that is, across South American but also global) scale, the few members in this group that don't have an (English) page should have one, in my understanding. Nietzschemarxfoucault (talk) 11:35, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * No additional help was forthcoming in making this assessment so have accepted the draft. ~Kvng (talk) 21:42, 7 May 2019 (UTC)