Alfonso Múnera Cavadía

Alfonso David Múnera Cavadía (born 1954) is a Colombian historian who served as ambassador to Jamaica (1999–2003) and Guyana (2017–) and secretary general of the Association of Caribbean States (2012–2016). He was recognized as one of 12 outstanding Afro-Colombians in 2010.

Academic career Born in Cartagena in 1954, Múnera earned a law degree from the University of Cartagena in 1981 and an MA and PhD in Latin American studies and US history from the University of Connecticut in 1995. His dissertation was entitled "Failing to Construct the Colombian Nation: Race and Class in the Andean-Caribbean Conflict, 1717–1816." In 1981, he began teaching at the University of Cartagena, where he served as vice rector of research (2007–2010) and founded the International Institute for Caribbean Studies in 2005. Múnera has been a visiting professor in Spain and the United States at institutions such as Pablo de Olavide University (1999), the University of Wisconsin (2003–2004), and the University of Seville (2006).

Research interests Múnera's research focuses on the African-descended community of Colombia and the systematic social exclusion of that community by the European criollo elite during nineteenth-century nation building. He has also examined the role of the Caribbean region in Colombia's development. His scholarship has had a significant impact on Colombian historiography and paved the way for broader academic and popular recognition of the roles that Afro-Colombians played in fighting the region's wars of independence and forging national and regional consciousnesses.