Guilllermo de la Peña is one of the most prestigious Mexican anthropologists. Doctorate in anthropology, University of Manchester (Great Britain), is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and has received prizes and scholarships from the National Council of Science and Technology, the Ford Foundation, the Edward Larocque Tinker Foundation, the Mexican Association for Population Studies and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He received the National Award for Urban and Regional Research in 1994 and received the Jalisco Award in the Science Area in 1991. He is currently a lecturer in the West Unit of the Centre for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), where he has received three times (1993, 1995 and 1998) the prize for the best research article. It has produced more than 140 scientific publications. This interview took place in the city of Washington, following the participation of Peña Doctor in the panel on Performing Sovereignties: Strategies for Repressing Indigenous Land and Political Claims in Latin American, during the 104th meeting of the American Anthropological Association.