Fernando Cámara Barbachano (Mérida, Yucatán, April 17, 1919 – Mexico City, December 30, 2007) was an academic, museologist, ethnologist, and social anthropologist who was the founder and director of the Yucatecan Institute of Anthropology.
[7] Another member of the family, Fernando Barbachano Peón, was a prominent hotel businessman who is remembered for developing the tourism industry in the Yucatán peninsula.
[8] Education Cámara Barbachano belonged to the second generation of students at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), earning his B.A.
and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago (1950)[9] with a doctoral thesis titled: "Persistence and cultural change among Tzeltals of the Chiapas Highlands: Comparative study of the religious and political institutions of the Municipalities of Tenejapa and Oxchue."
Cámara Barbachano also established the conceptual, technical, and ethical bases on which this discipline is developed today in Mexico and a large part of Latin America.
His work was reflected in 81 publications, more than 100 presentations, 50 consultancies and 400 conferences; 53 of which he taught at various North American universities such as those of New York, Wisconsin, Michigan and California, as well as those of the Dominican Republic, Panama, Barcelona and Seville.