He currently works at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City and is the director of its programme of studies in urban culture.
His books include Hybrid Cultures, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1995 and recipient of the first Ibero-American Book Award for the best book about Latin America chosen by the Latin American Association, and Consumers and Citizens, also published by the University of Minnesota Press, in 2001. Canclini also sits on the Editorial Collective of the academic journal Public Culture.