̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Centre of Latin American Studies

̽��ֱ��researcher finding inspiration for the planet’s future in Latin American art

cg605 — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 18:13:32 +0000

Joanna Page has been exploring how work by Latin American artists can help to bring humanity back into a relationship with nature and give us hope for the planet’s future.

̽��ֱ��unschooled anthropologist working with Q'eqchi' weavers

cg605 — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 14:08:32 +0000

Living for ten months with Q’eqchi’ weavers in the Alta Verapaz of Guatemala, PhD student Callie Vandewiele watched and listened as the women crafted their intricate picb’'l textiles. Her unconventional upbringing helped her to let go of the questions she’d originally set out to answer and follow her research, wherever it took her.

Opinion: Harsh Republican immigration rhetoric is invigorating Latino voters

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 12:20:32 +0000

Donald Trump has said Mexicans “are bringing drugs, and bringing crime” to the US, while his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls are also talking up hawkish anti-immigration policies as the primary season unfolds.

That they feel confident doing so says something about American Latinos' surprising history of not showing up at the ballot box in big numbers. But based on the data we have, it seems the anti-immigration right may have finally gone too far.

Latinos are the largest ethnic minority group in the US, making up 17.4% of the population, yet the Latino electorate has so far underperformed at the ballot box. ̽��ֱ��Pew Research Centre projects that a record 27.3m Latinos will be eligible to vote in 2016. That’s 4m more than in 2012, but still only about half of the US’s Latino population.

Expanding the size of the electorate through voter registration and naturalisation campaigns is undoubtedly an important step towards augmenting the political influence of the Latino community. But the impact of a larger electorate will be mitigated if half of eligible Latino voters continue to stay home on election day.

At the 2012 election, an alarming 12m eligible Latinos chose not to vote, and the Latino turnout rate dropped from 49.9% in 2008 to 48%. Conversely, 66.6% of African Americans and 64.1% of non-Hispanic whites voted.

While mobilising unlikely voters in Chicago in 2014, I witnessed how misinformation and a lack of understanding of how the government functions fuels public disillusion with the political process, a major reason many voters, not just Latinos, opt to reject the ballot box.

But the viciously anti-immigrant rhetoric promulgated by Republican candidates is forcing Latino voters to pay attention.

Waking up

A 2015 survey of registered Latino voters jointly conducted by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and Latino Decisions found that 43% of respondents felt more interested in this year’s presidential election than in 2012. ̽��ֱ��same survey found that immigration reform, deportations and Barack Obama’s recent interventions via executive actions are the most important issues for 39% of respondents, tied with job creation and the economy – whereas immigration issues ranked only fourth among Latino voters' priorities in 2012.

This doesn’t make good reading for the Republican presidential front-runners, who claim to recognise the importance of the Latino vote to their campaigns but repeatedly alienate voters with their xenophobic rhetoric and unrealistic immigration policies.

On some themes, Donald Trump is in a league of his own: at the start of his campaign in the summer of 2015, he described Mexicans, by far the US’s largest Latino subgroup, as criminals and rapists. But all three candidates have called for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and have promised to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an administrative policy that allows certain undocumented youth the ability to temporarily live and work in the US.

These promises alarm me since I’m a DACA beneficiary. DACA, among other things, made it possible for me to gain employment after graduating from Amherst College and to continue my graduate education. I am currently a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and a future Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua ̽��ֱ�� in China.

If Trump, Cruz or Rubio reach the White House, the other 660,000 beneficiaries and I would return to living under fear of deportation without access to legal employment.

From the ground up

Deporting all 11m of us is not realistic and will hurt the economy. ̽��ֱ��cheap labour of undocumented workers subsidises the standard of living of every American. Undocumented immigrants also pay billions in taxes which help support public programs. ̽��ֱ��Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy that undocumented residents paid an estimated $11.84 billion in state and local taxes in 2012 – and that legalising undocumented people would add $2.2 billion a year to state and local taxes.

Republican candidates know their immigration proposals are unrealistic, but they chose to ignore the facts to score political points with their conservative base.

Fortunately, the American people are on our side. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 65% of US adults and 77% of Latinos favour a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. While I can’t vote, most of my extended family members, my colleagues and my friends can, and they will not vote for a candidate who wants to deport my mother and me.

Cruz and Rubio, both Cuban Americans, are perhaps hoping Latinos will ignore their stance on immigration and support them in the general election by virtue of their last names. But, if nominated, their ethnicity alone will not endear them to Latino voters. In the aforementioned NCLR survey, only 4% of respondents said they would blindly vote for a Latino candidate; 55% of Latinos listed the candidates’ positions as the most important factor influencing their vote.

This will only matter if Latinos vote in numbers that can make a real difference. Raised turnout and greater political representation are not the catalysts for political empowerment, but the products of it. If those who stand up for Latino interests want to sustain political participation in a meaningful way, civic engagement at the grassroots level must be their focus.

If they can be brought to the ballot box in representative numbers, they could dramatically change American politics. But without a sustained grassroots organising effort, a significant number of Latinos will remain political bystanders in the US.

Carlos Adolfo Gonzalez Sierra, ‎Gates Scholar in Latin American Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Carlos Adolfo Gonzalez Sierra (Centre of Latin American Studies) discusses how the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Republican candidates is forcing Latino voters to pay attention.

Darron Birgenheier

Donald Trump in Reno, Nevada

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Agreement brings Cambridge closer to Mexico

pbh25 — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 08:19:20 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is enhancing its links with Mexican higher education institutions by signing an agreement with the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) for the establishment of an academic mobility programme in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

̽��ֱ��purpose of the agreement, which is valid for five years in the first instance, is to create an annual Visiting Fellowship. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge-UDLAP Visiting Fellowship will allow two scholars from Cambridge and two scholars from UDLAP to spend between four and eight weeks at the partner institution. Supported by the UDLAP Foundation, it will serve to strengthen academic links and enhance the potential for research collaboration between the two universities.

This is the first agreement of its kind between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and a Latin American higher education institution. ̽��ֱ��agreement was signed at the end of 2015, officially designated as the “Year of Mexico in the UK” and “Year of the UK in Mexico” as a way of strengthening ties and enhancing mutual understanding between both countries.

UDLAP was founded in 1940 as a private university, and is consistently ranked among the top Mexican universities. Its president, Luis Ernesto Derbez, was Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs (2003-2006) and, before that, the country’s Secretary of the Economy (2000-2002). ̽��ֱ��city of Puebla, where the university is located, is less than 70 miles from Mexico City. It was founded in 1531 and is world-known for its colonial architecture. It was selected as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites in 1987.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-UDLAP Visiting Fellowship will be open to full-time research staff at both institutions in all areas of the arts, humanities and social sciences. In Cambridge, it will be managed by the Centre of Latin American Studies (CLAS), an interdisciplinary research and postgraduate teaching centre which acts as a hub for research on Latin America across the whole university.

Speaking after the signature of the agreement, Dr Joanna Page, Director of CLAS said: “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge-UDLAP Visiting Fellowship will help to strengthen the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s expertise in the field of Mexican arts, humanities and social sciences. This is an exciting opportunity for researchers here to spend time in Mexico, consulting libraries and archives, collecting data, and exchanging ideas with experts in relevant fields. By welcoming scholars from UDLAP at Cambridge, we also hope to establish much closer links with one of Mexico’s most dynamic universities, and to lay the groundwork for mutually beneficial collaborations. Visiting Fellows from UDLAP will join the strong, interdisciplinary research community based at the Centre and I have no doubt that their visits will lead to many interesting conversations and open up opportunities for future research.”

On behalf of UDLAP, Chancellor Dr Luis Ernesto Derbez, added: “In the knowledge society, the future will be for those who dare to innovate, to think differently, and to believe in the transformational power of ideas. This agreement between UDLAP and Cambridge brings that future closer by offering an extraordinary opportunity for scholars at both institutions to know our countries and cultures better, and to develop cutting-edge research on the arts, humanities and social sciences. ̽��ֱ��current challenge, for our universities, is to engage in collaboration with the objective of producing original knowledge that could not have been created without this partnership. Cambridge scholars will find a vibrant community of students and faculty at UDLAP, while our researchers will surely take advantage of staying at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. We hope this will be the first step in a long and successful academic relationship.”

̽��ֱ��first call for applications to the Cambridge-UDLAP Visiting Fellowship will be made in early 2016.

For further information, please contact the Centre of Latin American Studies, admin@latin-american.cam.ac.uk

Picture credits: “A view of UDLAP campus” ©UDLAP

Annual visiting fellowship created with the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP).

̽��ֱ��Cambridge-UDLAP Visiting Fellowship will help to strengthen the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s expertise in the field of Mexican arts, humanities and social sciences.

Dr Joanna Page, Director of the Centre of Latin American Studies

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Until lions write their own history…

amb94 — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 09:47:35 +0000

Through kimonos, wall hangings, mats, soft sculptures and paintings, artist Deanna Tyson tells her political tales and weaves her social comments through stitched and painted works.

“Textiles, their application, their colours, their very threads and stitches reveal a great deal about the social history of differing cultures,” says Tyson. “Like a spider, I hope to lure the spectator in through a pretty and frivolous web of threads towards a political punch. Many of the pieces employ African wax cloth, the lineage of which is steeped in meaning and metaphor, legacies of colonialism, trade routes and exploitation.”

̽��ֱ��exhibition space in the atrium of the Alison Richard Building (ARB) nestled among the Faculties of English, History, Divinity and Music is creating a reputation as one of Cambridge’s best-kept secrets, and a leading venue for contemporary international art.

Since the building’s opening last year, the ARB’s Public Art Committee has welcomed a series of exhibitions as part of its ‘ART at the ARB’ initiative, including installation, photography, ceramic and textile work. ̽��ֱ��bright open space of the building’s atrium, arranged over three floors, lends itself to large and colourful pieces and offers a flexible approach to displaying three-dimensional works.

̽��ֱ��ARB, home to the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) is not just an elegant space, but also has art running through its veins. Last year award-winning contemporary ceramicist Edmund de Waal embedded his porcelain works into the very ground on which the building stands for his piece, A Local History. ̽��ֱ��three glass-covered, underfoot cabinets, or vitrines, that contain his collections of ceramic fragments echo the meticulous work of archivists at the Centre of African Studies, the Centre of South Asian Studies and Centre of Latin American Studies. ̽��ֱ��thrill of walking over these unmarked cabinets for the first time is well worth a visit.

Deanna Tyson’s exhibition of textile work, ‘Until lions write their own history the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter’, will be open until 3 January 2014. Entry is free.

To find out more about ‘ART at the ARB’, and to propose a new exhibition, visit: https://arbart.crassh.cam.ac.uk/

An exhibition of contemporary textile art by Deanna Tyson has opened at the Alison Richard Building in response to the unique materials held there collected from all corners of the globe.

Deanna Tyson

Karnu Warrior

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Falklands/Malvinas: A national cause

bjb42 — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:44:46 +0000

A bleak archipelago in the South Atlantic, with a population of around 3,000 and temperatures that rarely rise above 13 degrees, there seems little to commend the Falklands, or Islas Malvinas. Offshore oil reserves have aroused new economic possibilities in the region, but the islands’ main industries remain sheep farming, fishing and tourism. Many justifiably wonder why these rocks are the subject of such bitter diplomacy or why, in 1982, the lives of more than 900 people had to be lost in their name.

Thirty years after the conflict, however, the debate between Britain and Argentina over who owns the Falklands/Malvinas shows little sign of abating – indeed, the anniversary of the war has reignited tensions between the two. At the same time, their attitudes are hardly the same. While Britain continues to stress its commitment to the islanders’ right to self-determination, popular interest in the UK is nothing compared with the passions that the Malvinas arouse in Argentina.

There, when the Government calls for negotiations with the British, it is guaranteed huge public support. In Argentina, memorials to the war and posters reasserting the country’s claim to the islands are a common sight, while young people often get tattoos of the Malvinas in the national colours. Such zeal seems odd in the UK, where a war over a territory that even the Prime Minister’s husband had to look up in an atlas at the time, now tends to feel long-since gone.

̽��ֱ��key to understanding Argentina’s very different point of view lies not with what the islands are, nor with natural resources. It is about what they represent. For many British people, the story of the Falklands War is a simple one, in which the country fought for its fellow-citizens and won. Argentinian ideas about the islands are usually much more complex, and often deeply emotional as well.

Since the war, a number of Argentinian writers, poets, academics and filmmakers have expressed, debated and critiqued those ideas and feelings in works which show how central the Malvinas are to the way Argentina perceives itself as a nation. Many of these works will be the subject of a conference at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge on June 9^th, five days before the 30^th anniversary of the conflict’s end. Academics from Britain, Argentina and elsewhere will join forces to discuss the war’s cultural legacy, because, they argue, doing so allows us to better understand the debates and controversies that the conflict has inspired in Argentina.

Although this will not be an event about rights to sovereignty, Dr Joanna Page, from the ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for Latin American Studies and a specialist in Argentinian culture, argues that the current political debate over who owns the islands should be informed by a better understanding of the social and cultural weight of the Malvinas in Argentinian history.

“When I go to Argentina, people often ask me about what people here in Britain think about the islands,” she said. “If you tell them that most people don’t really think about them at all, that’s very difficult for them to understand. For them, the memory of the war runs much deeper, it reaches much further into how Argentina thinks of itself as a nation, and those ideas are still evolving to this day.”

“In spite of all the political wrangling, there is not a lot of understanding in Britain about why the islands are so important to Argentina. It doesn’t seem to make sense. When you start looking back through the history and the literature, however, you realize how far they are tied up with ideas about nationhood and identity. Exploring how the Malvinas are represented in cultural texts reveals a lot more about what motivates Argentina’s performance on the diplomatic stage.”

Page’s own research on evolving Argentinian perspectives on the war has been influenced by the work of the political scientist, Vicente Palermo, and the historian, Federico Lorenz, who will be one of the keynote speakers at the conference. Palermo argues that since the country achieved independence from Spain in 1810, its national identity has been founded on a number of clear, fundamental ideas.

Where some countries define themselves primarily in terms of a shared culture, for example, territorial integrity – the land itself – is core to Argentina’s sense of national identity. ̽��ֱ��nation’s destiny is often represented in history and literature as frustrated by colonial powers who have invaded the land and ransacked its riches. Another key notion that Palermo identifies in Argentine national identity is that of unity, of a cause that brings everyone together.

These ideas sit perfectly with that of the Islas Malvinas: a physical territory, usurped (according to one version of history) by imperial British forces, and now a cause which the nation can unanimously throw itself behind. If, for the British themselves, the islands are curious and remote, to the Argentinians they are a national icon.

As Lorenz shows, however, remembering the war in Argentina is a complicated question. It was perpetrated and lost by a deeply corrupt military junta, which had been in power since 1976 and was guilty of numerous human rights abuses. ̽��ֱ��invasion of the Malvinas was partly an opportunistic act to shore up its popularity. Some 650 Argentinians lost their lives as a result. Perhaps as many veterans again have killed themselves since.

̽��ֱ��dilemma this creates is whether to remember the Malvinas War as just another crime committed by the military regime, or as a legitimate popular and national cause. Argentina’s cultural output since the war reflects this dilemma. “In the years following 1982, the war was associated with the regime and many people distanced themselves from it,” Page said. “They forgot, rather conveniently, that they had poured on to the streets to support it when it began. After defeat, the war was seen as a horrible mistake and it was a relief to many that it could be seen as a chapter that closed with the end of the dictatorship.”

̽��ֱ��desire to forget has often been summed up in the term desmalvinizacion, a “don’t mention the war” mentality which presided in Argentina for many years. Literature and film of the period often portrayed the conflict not as a fight with the British, but as an expression of internal strife. ̽��ֱ��war for the Malvinas became a coincidental backdrop to a battle within Argentina itself.

Often, this was achieved by focusing on how officers (representing the junta) abused and even tortured their conscripts (the ordinary Argentinian) in the freezing conditions of the Malvinas. ̽��ֱ��1984 film Los chicos de la guerra, for example, showed frightened adolescents being press-ganged into an absurd conflict not of their making. In 2004, the award-winning Iluminados por el fuego picked up many of these themes.

Ironically, those who fought never approved of such works, even though they claimed to be telling their story. Los chicos de la guerra provoked an angry response from veterans, and even Iluminados por el fuego has come in for criticism because the memoir on which it is based was more ambiguous. As a book, it described exemplary conduct among officers as well. That was conveniently erased in a film which aimed to show the ordinary soldier as a victim of the government, and the war as a cruel and expensive mistake.

What fascinates scholars like Page is that other perspectives on the war are now starting to emerge more clearly. In historical and cultural narratives, the war has often been separated from the broader campaign to reclaim sovereignty over the islands, remembered, in the words of a popular saying, as una causa justa en manos bastarda - a righteous cause in the hands of bastards.

That cause is alive and kicking. Cultural texts on the war – novels, poetry, film and comics – reveal a huge range of responses to the legacy of the Malvinas war and Argentina’s continued campaign for sovereignty. Many do not simply stick to recording the events of the war or its impact then and now, but stray into fantasy or parody. In the view of Carlos Gamerro, another keynote speaker whose seminal novel, ̽��ֱ��Islands, comes out in English translation this month, the only way to understand the nationalist fictions in which Argentinians present the war is by giving it an obviously fictional treatment. If the history of the islands has been shaped by their mythical role in Argentine nationalism, then history and fiction are not so far apart.

Amid the recent political heat, Page hopes that the conference will help to cast a more dispassionate and analytical eye on the question of how the Malvinas have been imagined within Argentina. “There are people coming to Cambridge on the 9th who feel that the debates in Argentina about the Malvinas are still very restricted, and perhaps more so with the recent resurgence of nationalist feeling about the islands,” Page added. “Just as the past overshadows the politics of the present, the politics of the present define the ways in which we look at the past. One of the things we want to ask is what role culture plays in shaping history.”

Thirty years after it ended, the Falklands/Malvinas War still casts a long shadow over the lives of many Argentinians. A conference marking the anniversary next week will look at how it has been represented in history, literature, cinema and other media, showing how through these we can better understand why Argentina cares so much about the islands.

Exploring how the Malvinas are represented in cultural texts reveals a lot more about what motivates Argentina’s performance on the diplomatic stage.

Joanna Page

Wikimedia Commons.

Argentinian graves in East Falkland. While soldiers were often characterized as victims of the junta in the war’s immediate aftermath, they are now seen by many as patriots who died for a righteous cause.

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New perspectives on Latin America

lw355 — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:44:59 +0000

Shaped by indigenous cultures and colonial influences, and with a contemporary history that encompasses acute political competition, social unrest and economic change, Latin America is a stimulating region for academic enquiry. Cambridge’s Centre of Latin American Studies – with its extensive library and one of the largest collections of Latin American films in the UK – provides a hub to link the many Latin Americanists based in faculties across the ̽��ֱ��.

For researchers such as Dr Charles Jones, who is based in the Department of Politics and International Studies and will take up the Directorship of the Centre at the start of the academic year, the region provides unique insights into international relations. ‘ ̽��ֱ��republics of Latin America became independent from their European colonisers 200 years ago,’ he explains. ‘After two centuries of separate existence, they are still largely dominated by elites of European descent, yet conduct their relations with one another very differently, holding distinctive views about international law, diplomacy and conflict resolution. Being able to compare regions is fascinating – it’s rather like being able to conduct a laboratory experiment in international relations.’

Research linked through the Centre is diverse: ranging from the study of modernist architecture to the colonial history of the Andes; and including, as highlighted here, cinema, violence, religion and multiculturalism.

Visualising Argentina

̽��ֱ��study of Latin American film and visual arts is a particular area of expertise at the Centre. Drs Joanna Page, Geoffrey Kantaris, Erica Segre and Rory O’Bryen are shedding light on the region’s vibrant creative legacy and opening up Latin American culture to a wider audience.

Dr Page has focused on Argentina, where the visual arts have responded in innovative ways to the experience of dictatorship, rising costs, unemployment and crime. Argentine cinema, which entered a boom period in the 1990s, is a compelling period of film-making for her, as she explains: ‘Film directors had to create a new kind of aesthetic, born of economic necessity. They often shot in black and white, on streets with natural lighting or in a single apartment, using friends as actors. ̽��ֱ��films register the anxieties and fears, civil unrest and social disintegration in contemporary Argentina.’

Other forms of visual culture have also been important vehicles for social and political critique in Argentina, especially in response to the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, a period of state-sponsored violence. ‘One example is the post-apocalyptic comic El Eternauta written by Héctor Oesterheld,’ she explains. ‘It typifies the intellectual and philosophical heritage of the science fiction genre in Argentina in engaging with political issues and was written before Oesterheld himself was kidnapped and became one of the disappeared.’

‘Argentina’s appropriation of science fiction is often heavily ironic given the genre’s strong association with European and North American imaginaries,’ adds Page. ‘ ̽��ֱ��result is a radical form of social critique.’

Violence in ‘Black Rome of the Americas’

Social anthropologist Dr Marta Magalhaes works in Salvador, Bahia. This UNESCO World Heritage Centre, once capital of colonial Brazil, is often referred to as the ‘Black Rome of the Americas’ because of its strong Afro-Brazilian heritage. ̽��ֱ��aim of her research was to examine what the ongoing urban regeneration of the colonial historic centre meant to its original, now-displaced, residents, but what she found instead was that Bahians wanted to speak about their experiences of violence in the city.

‘Brazil is a powerhouse – a resource-rich, technologically competent, vigorous democracy that has made great strides to close the gap between rich and poor,’ she explains. ‘But it also suffers from a persisting cocktail of violence, drugs, gangs and police intervention.’ In recent months, escalating violence in the favelas (shantytowns) of Rio de Janeiro has taken centre stage as police operations have attempted to take control.

Dr Magalhaes’ fieldwork in Salvador has uncovered a perception by its inhabitants of violence as a constant presence. ‘My research has focused on understanding what this sense of violence does to people’s relation to themselves. On my last trip, I was struck by the fact most Bahians I spoke to were articulating their views on violence as an epidemic, not as a war as in Rio. By sensing violence as an epidemic that can claim them at will, they became potential victims of this faceless phenomenon, effectively feeding the fear.’

As her work continues, she hopes that a better understanding of the complexities of how violence is perceived and affects different people in practice might inform discussions on the effective solutions to bring about its reduction.

Born again in Latin America

In recent decades, predominantly Catholic Latin America has undergone what has been referred to as ‘the largest mass conversion in history’, as Pentecostalism has grown explosively across the region and beyond its shores.

Dr David Lehmann, from the Department of Sociology and Acting Director of the Centre, was among the first to draw attention to this apparent revolution in Latin American culture: ‘Pentecostalism, which had been growing gradually, exploded into the public consciousness in the 1980s, and grew to number almost 20% of the population in some countries. In recent years, Latin American Pentecostalism has been exported, and churches such as the Brazilian Universal Church of the Kingdom of God are now present worldwide.’

Pentecostalism has long been associated with developing countries and migrant groups. ‘It gives a voice to the voiceless and supports people in setting themselves ambitious targets, emphasising salvation by worldly success in this world as opposed to the afterlife,’ explains Lehmann. His work asks what the economic and political implications are of the spread and what it tells us about globalisation.

Connected with the underlying theme of religion, Dr Lehmann is also working on multiculturalism in Latin America, focusing on how issues of ethnicity and cultural difference are accepted and promoted. Funded by the British Academy, he is documenting and understanding developments in Latin America, and looking from a Latin American standpoint at Europe’s struggle with the contested issue of multiculturalism.

‘Latin America deserves academic attention because it is a region where, despite serious issues of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic exclusion, it does not have the history and bitterness of racial confrontation in the modern period that we find in Europe and the United States,’ he explains. ‘That’s not to say that discrimination doesn’t exist. But knowledge of policies to counter racial exclusion, such as the almost unique investment in intercultural universities, should be of interest elsewhere in the world. We can learn from the Latin American experience.’

At the Centre of Latin American Studies, interdisciplinary research is offering a new perspective on the creativity, challenges and lessons that can be learned from Latin America.

We can learn from the Latin American experience.

Dr David Lehmann

Francisco Valdez, Rosario, Argentina

El Eternauta, Argentina

Legacy of El Libertador

For the past 40 years, the academic community has benefited from the arrival of distinguished Latin American scholars through the Simón Bolívar Chair in Latin American Studies.

̽��ֱ��Fellowship was established by the Venezuelan Government in memory of Simón Bolívar (El Libertador) – the foremost leader of Latin American independence in the 1820s – and has brought a host of illustrious figures to Cambridge. Among those who have taken up the Chair for a one-year teaching and research sabbatical are Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the 2010 Nobel prize in Literature, and sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who later became President of Brazil.

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