opening up our Latin America-Mediterranean collaboration

Ela, agapi, here our first post on this plataform, so we may be able to make the most of it to push our ideas on "Latinterranean".

To start with, I am leaving here information on the LASA Congress 2018, in Barcelona, where we must do something together.

Congress Theme
Latin American studies today is experiencing a surprising dynamism. The expansion of this field defies the pessimistic projections of the 1990s about the fate of area studies in general and offers new opportunities for collaboration among scholars, practitioners, artists, and activists around the world. This can be seen in the expansion of LASA itself, which since the beginning of this century has grown from 5,000 members living primarily in the United States to nearly 12,000 members in 2016, 45 percent of whom reside outside of the United States (36 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean). And while the majority of us reside in the Americas, there are also an increasing number of Latin American studies associations and programs in Europe and Asia, most of which have their own publications and annual seminars and congresses.

Several factors explain this dynamism. Perhaps the most important is the very maturity of our field. Various generations of Latin Americanists have produced an enormous, diverse, and sophisticated body of research, with a strong commitment to interdisciplinarity and to teaching about this important part of the world. Latin American studies has produced concepts and comparative knowledge that have helped people around the world to understand processes and problematics that go well beyond this region. For example, Latin Americanists have been at the forefront of debates about the difficult relationship between democracy, development, and dependence on natural resource exports—challenges faced around the globe. Migration, immigration, and the displacement of people due to political violence, war, and economic need are also deeply rooted phenomena in our region, and pioneering work from Latin America can shed light on comparable experiences in other regions today. Needless to say, Latin American studies also has much to contribute to discussions about populism and authoritarianism in their various forms in Europe and even the United States today.

With these contributions in mind, we propose that the overarching theme of the Barcelona LASA Congress be “Latin American Studies in a Globalized World”, and that we examine both how people in other regions study and perceive Latin America and how Latin American studies contributes to the understanding of comparable processes and issues around the globe.

PROGRAM TRACKS

Names of Program Committee members are provided for information only. Direct your correspondence to the LASA Secretariat ONLY.

AFR / Afro-Latin/Indigenous Peoples 
Sofía Venturoli - Università di Torino 
Alejandra Navarro - Universidad de Buenos Aires

AGR / Agrarian and Rural Life 
Guadalupe Rodríguez-Gómez - Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Occidente 
Évelyne Mesclier - Institut Français d'Etudes Andine and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement

ALA / Asia and Latin America 
Ignacio López-Calvo - University of California, Merced 
Shigeko Mato - Waseda University 
Guo Jie - Peking University

ART / Art, Archaeology, and Architecture 
Alessia Frassani - Universiteit Leiden 
Ananda Cohen-Aponte - Cornell University

BIO / Biodiversity, Natural Resources and Environment 
Avecita Chicchón - Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation 
Franck Poupeau - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

CIT / Cities and Urban Studies 
Omar Pereyra - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 
Jesús M. González Pérez - Universitat de les Illes Balears

COL / Social Research in the Era of Analytics and Big Data 
José Manuel Magallanes - University of Washington and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 
Ernesto Calvo - University of Maryland

CSS / Civil Society and Social Movements 
Gonzalo Delamaza - Universidad de Los Lagos 
Adrian Gurza Lavalle - Universidade de São Paulo

CUL / Culture, Power and Political Subjectivities 
Patricia Oliart - Newcastle University 
Carles Feixa - Universitat de Lleida

ECO / Economics and Social Policies 
Erica Simmons - University of Wisconsin, Madison 
Lindsay Mayka - Colby College

EDU / Education and Educational Policies 
Norberto Fernández Lamarra - Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero 
Lorenza Villa Lever - Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

ENE / Energy, Commodities and Development 
Maritza Paredes Gonzales - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 
Matthew Amengual - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

EUR / Europe and Latin America 
Robin Cavagnoud - Ponticia Universidad Católica del Perú 
Hans-Jürgen Puhle - Goethe University, Frankfurt

FIL / Film Studies 
Michael Lazzara - University of California, Davis 
Pablo Piedras - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, and Universidad Nacional de las Artes

GEN / Gender and Feminisms 
Jelke Boesten - King's College London 
Margareth Rago - Universidade Estadual de Campinas

HIS / History and Historiography 
Antonio Escobar Ohmstede - Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Ciudad de México 
Natalia Sobrevilla Perea - University of Kent

HUM / Human Rights and Memory 
Maria Eugenia Ulfe - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 
Valérie Robin Azevedo - Université Paris Descartes

ILS / Interrogating Latin American Studies 
Ignacio Sánchez Prado - Washington University, St. Louis 
Cristián Castro - Universidad Diego Portales

INQ / Global Inequalities 
Sérgio Costa - Freie Universität Berlin 
Lena Lavinas - Universidade Federal do Río de Janeiro

INT / International Relations 
Carol Wise - University of Southern California 
Cintia Quiliconi - Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Ecuador

LAB / Labor Studies and Class Relations 
Paulo Drinot - University College London 
Delphine Mercier - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Sociologie du Travail and Aix-Marseille Université

LAW / Law, Rights and Citizenship 
Jorge González-Jácome - Universidad de los Andes 
LaDawn Haglund - Arizona State University

LSN / Literary Studies: Colonial and 19th Century 
Vanesa Miseres - University of Notre Dame 
Ivonne del Valle - University of California, Berkeley

LST / Literary Studies: Contemporary 
Claudia Salazar - The City University of New York, Brooklyn College 
Susanne Klengel - Freie Universität Berlin

LTC / Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Approaches 
Maricruz Castro-Ricalde - Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey 
Paola Cortés-Rocca - Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

MAS / Mass Media and Popular Culture 
Susana Kaiser - University of San Francisco 
Mariana De Maio - Lehigh University

MBD / Migration, Latinos, Diásporas 
Jorge Durand - Universidad de Guadalajara 
Sònia Parella Rubio - Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

OTS / Otros Saberes and Alternative Methods 
Mariana Mora - Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social, Mexico 
Angela Stuesse - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

PER / Performance and Visual Culture 
Lisa Blackmore - University of Essex 
Liliana Gómez-Popescu - Universität Zürich

PIP / Political Institutions and Processes 
Ezequiel Gonzalez Ocantos - Univesity of Oxford 
Julio Ríos Figueroa - Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas

PPP/ Politics and Public Policy 
John Polga-Hecimovich - United States Naval Academy 
Lorenza Fontana - Harvard University

REL / Religions and Spirituality 
Jennifer Scheper Hughes - University of California, Riverside 
Valentina Napolitano - University of Toronto

SAS / Sport and Society 
David Wood - University of Sheffield 
Pablo Alabarces - Universidad de Buenos Aires and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

SLS / Sexualities and LGBTQ Studies 
Joseph M. Pierce - State University of New York, Stony Brook 
Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel - Rutgers University

SMP / States, Markets and Political Economy 
Eduardo Dargent - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú 
Alisha Holland - Princeton University

TRA / Globalization and Transnationalism 
Ana Melisa Pardo - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 
Petra Rivera-Rideau - Wellesley College

VIO / Violence and (in)Security 
Sebastian Huhn - Osnabrueck University 
Angelika Rettberg - Universidad de los Andes 
Lucía Dammert - Universidad de Santiago de Chile

https://lasa.international.pitt.edu/eng/congress/