With a doctorate in Urban Sociology, he was director of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the Centro de Estudios sobre América (Centre of American Studies) in Havana. Between 2000 and 2005 he was general coordinator of research at FLACSO (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, Mexico City) and is presently coordinator of the "Cities and Borders" Multidisciplinary Studies Group in the Dominican Republic. He has edited and published more than a dozen books, noteworthy amongst which are Participación y desarrollo en los municipios cubanos (Participation and Development in Cuban Municipalities - La Habana, 1993); Alternativas de izquierda al neoliberalismo (Left-wing Alternatives to Neoliberalism - Madrid, 1997); Frontera en Transición (Frontier in Transition - Santo Domingo, 2007); and Ciudades Fragmentadas (Fragmented Cities - Santo Domingo, 2007). He has been a teacher and researcher in different universities in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the United States, while also working as a consultant to a range of international development agencies.