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The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) is proud to announce the 2012 winners of the Barbados Canadian Friendship Scholarships. These scholarships are awarded to full-time graduate students at York University whose area of research is related to Barbados or the Barbadian-Canadian community.
The two PhD-level students to be selected for this recognition are Jill Andrew (PhD candidate, Education) and Jason Mikelakos (PhD candidate, History).
Jill Andrew holds a B.Ed. in Social Sciences and Dramatic Arts (York), an MA in Women and Gender Studies (University of Toronto) and is currently pursuing her PhD in Education at York, where her research focuses on women's body images and self esteem, media representation and visual literacies (particularly for marginalized female populations). Jill is particularly concerned with the historical and contemporary links between the harmful practice of skin-bleaching and socio-cultural, economic identity among racialized women, Barbadian or Black Canadian women of Bajan heritage in Toronto. Jill is also an award-winning journalist and currently pens the lifestyle column Last Word for T.O. Night Newspaper. She is the producer of Curvy Catwalk Fashion Fundraiser, BITE ME! Toronto Int'l Body Image Film & Arts Festival, Dining with Dames Girls Leadership, Self-Esteem & Mentorship Program and other creative projects. She has been recognized with the Michele Landsberg Media Activism Award and the Endless Possibilities African-Canadian Women's Award, among others. In 2010 Jill was one of 120 Canadian women hand-picked by then-Governor General Michaëlle Jean to participate in the first Governor General's Conference on Women's Security at Rideau Hall.
In support of her nomination for this award, York faculty member Prof. Aparna Mishra Tarc noted that "Jill is so very dedicated to the lives of others and gives all her energy towards working for women in the communities in which she teaches and works. .. She is truly an unforgettable thinker, speaker, educator and writer… Jill's project contributes new knowledge and representations of the lives and experiences of Black Canadian women from Barbados and other Caribbean nations. [It] significantly addresses an aspect of Black women's subject formation in relation to dominant society images of women's bodies… [and] aims to bring new knowledge of body issues faced by Black women to scholarly audiences and the general multicultural public." A member of the evaluation committee commented: "it is the creativity, passion, commitment and insight that Andrew brings to her project that will ensure its originality and its impact. Her grasp of the area in theoretical, empirical and personal terms is very impressive. "
Jason Michelakos completed his B.A. (Hons.) in Philosophy and Political Studies at Trent University in 2004, winning the Bagnani Award. He is also a graduate of the Master's degree program in Political Science at Western University, where in 2005 he received the Special University Scholarship. Jason is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the Social and Political Thought program at York University; his dissertation examines how disciplinary and governmental power shaped plantation slavery in Barbados and South Carolina. In 2009 he was awarded the Division of Humanities Excellence in Teaching Award at York University.
In a letter of support for Jason's nomination for this award, York faculty member Prof. Marie-Christine Leps stated: "[Jason] is a truly exceptional scholar, writer and award-winning teacher… His expertise in critical and cultural theory, philosophy and political science, combined with his vast knowledge of slave plantation history, allow him to break new ground in scholarship… he will become an important voice in Canadian scholarship in the not-too-distant future… [The] scholarly and political importance [of his work] cannot be overemphasized." A member of the evaluation committee observed: "He has an excellent grasp of Barbadian history and is expected to make an original contribution to understanding the genesis of modernity through his study of the disciplinary formation of the plantation system in Barbados and South Carolina."
CERLAC congratulates the worthy beneficiaries of this award.
The Barbados Canadian Friendship Graduate Scholarships were created through the contribution of an anonymous donor, and are administered by CERLAC.
2011 Baptista Essay Prizes awarded
The Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University (CERLAC) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Michael Baptista Essay Prize for outstanding scholarly papers on topics of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
The essays were nominated by York faculty members and evaluated by two committees of CERLAC Fellows (a separate committee for each level of prize). The awards recipients were fêted at an awards luncheon on 30 March 2012 attended also by Sharon Baptista, widow of the prize's namesake, and representatives of CERLAC.
Rolando Aguilera's contribution provides a "excellent and up-to-date overview of the debates around amnesty within the transitional justice literature and then situates the issue within one particular context, El Salvador." In the words of one evaluator: "This is an example of excellent research strongly rooted within the ethical consideration of struggles for peace and justice... [The author] is to be congratulated!"
At the graduate-level, co-awardee Caren Weisbart's "thoughtful, well-written and sophisticated piece of work... displays a particularly insightful analysis of contemporary political economy and cultural politics in Guatemala ... [developing] a convincing and theoretically-grounded analysis of alternative forms of indigenous mobilization and their relationships to contemporary neoliberal projects of domination and exclusion." The evaluators found it to be "a superb essay, imaginatively written and a joy to read", and "most commendable [in] its attempt to situate the study both historically, as well as within broader theoretical debates on rights and freedom..."
"Thoroughly researched [and] meticulously developed," the paper by the second graduate-level winner, Charis Kamphuis, "convincingly demonstrates the troubled entanglements of local and international law regimes, the Peruvian state and multinational corporations." The paper "very succesfully and lucidly weaves together an analysis of three complex actors (security firms, mining corporations and the state) and three fields of law/regulation (public international human rights law, private international investment law, and voluntary corporate social responsibility arrangements)", and carries this "challenging intellectual project to a cogent conclusion."
There is also a certain elegance at the thematic level in the sharing of the prize between the two graduate-level winners, notes one evaluator: "Kamphuis and Weisbart's papers almost read as complimentary texts, with Weisbart turning to consider alternative strategies in the face of the kinds of obstacles that Kamphuis so eloquently sets out."
All three of these prize-winning papers are available online as part of CERLAC's Baptista Prize-Winning Essays Series.
All of the nominated papers represent high-calibre scholarly work at their authors' respective levels of study, and merit recognition as worthy of candidacy for this prize. The other undergraduate papers nominated for the 2011 prize were: Meganne Cameron's "Searching for Measures of Corporate Accountability and Social Responsibility: Goldcorp's Activities in Guatemala and the Use of Shareholder Proposals to Influence Corporate Behaviour"; Galiatzo Flores Montoya's "Los poemas-sones de Nicolas Guillen Lo revolucionario músico-poético en Motivos de son"; and Ajit Singh's "American Convention on Human Rights Articles 46(1)(A) and 46(2)(C): Achilles Heel or Trojan Horse?" The other graduate-level nominees were: Priscila B. Becker's "Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil: A Comparison Between the Letter of the Law and Its Application"; Maria Alejandrina Coates' "Violence and Virtuality; Representing the Colonial Wound in Video/ Media Art"; Natalie McDonald's "Brain Drain and Brain Circulation in the Caribbean"; and Latoya Lazarus' "This is a Christian Nation: Religion, Gender and Sexuality in the Jamaican Constitutional Process."
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize was established by the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This $500 Prize is awarded annually to both a graduate and an undergraduate student at York University in recognition of an outstanding scholarly essay of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, from the humanities, social science, business or legal perspective. The Michael Baptista Essay Prize and Lecture are named in honour of Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central to his spirit and success: the importance of his Guyanese / Caribbean roots, his dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal Bank of Canada, and his continued and unqualified drive and love of learning.
Jan Anderson receives inaugural John Buttrick Memorial Bursary
In late 2009, Ann G. Buttrick established the John Buttrick Memorial Bursary in memory of her late husband, John Buttrick. This bursary awards an international student at York majoring in African and Caribbean Studies who demonstrates financial need.
In explaining her motivation for creating the bursary, Ann states: "John used his economics training to equalize the playing field. His experience of the 1929 depression and his Conscientious Objection to war forged his lifelong activism on the issues of education, unemployment, racism, poverty and peace. ... John insisted on empirical analysis for investigation of social problems, large and small. The desire for rigorous examination of fact and myth seldom stopped him from working with and supporting those in search of social change. His researches for activist groups were trusted, carried weight, made a difference. ... This is why I hoped a bursary created in his name at York would be a useful celebration of his life work."
The 2010 recipient of the bursary is Jan Anderson, a double major in International Development Studies and African Studies with a concentration in Politics, Policy, and Governance as these pertain to human security issues. Says Jan: "My interest was engendered by my years in the Caribbean and Southern Africa where I operated a fair trade art gallery. The deteriorating political situations in these countries and the devastating consequences for their citizens fostered an urgent need in me to better understand how democracy, rule of law, and good governance could be better executed. This led me to Canada's leading social science university, York."
Jan has persevered with her studies despite being recently visited with family tragedy and other hardships; she notes with gratitude that this "assistance came at a tumultuous time personally and by extension academically". She will be graduating from York in May 2011 and intends to further her studies at the University of Edinburgh.
CERLAC is honoured to have been entrusted by Ann with the administration of this bursary and pleased to memorialize in this way a much missed colleague.
Our thanks to Ann, and congratulations to this year's winner.
Alumnus' documentary on mining in Ecuador wins prizes in Bilbao, London
"Under Rich Earth", a film by York alumnus and CERLAC Diploma receipient Malcolm Rogge, recently won FIRST PRIZE at the International Festival of the Unseen in Bilbao, Spain. Last month, it picked up the award for BEST ENVIRONMENTAL FILM at the We the Peoples Film Festival in London, U.K.. Over the last year, the film has screened at festivals from Bucharest to Sao Paulo.
Under Rich Earth is a feature length documentary that follows family farmers in Ecuador’s Intag valley who resist what they consider to be the invasion of their land by foreign prospectors. Víctor, Rosario, Robinson, Marcia and Carlos are among hundreds of people who join together to stop outsiders from transforming their beloved valley into what a Canadian mining company says will inevitably become a ‘world class’ copper mine. Facing the prospect of losing their precious land and forests, the farmers are ready to give up their lives. But is their conviction matched by the tenacity of those who want to undermine them?
Under Rich Earth was produced and directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Rogge. Dr. Liisa North, a CERLAC fellow, also helped produce the film. Rogge traveled to Ecuador for the first time in 1996 to work on his Master’s thesis project. His thesis supervisor, Dr. Liisa North—now a close friend and mentor of the filmmaker—had introduced him to a group of Ecuadorian women who had founded Acción Ecológica (Ecological Action). Their job was to bring information to remote villages where people were eager to learn about the environmental impact of oil development and their legal rights.
Winners announced: 2010 Michael
Baptista Essay Prizes
CERLAC is pleased to announce the winners of the 2010
Michael Baptista Essay Prizes for outstanding scholarly papers on topics
of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Margaret's paper, said one evaluator, "is an excellent example of counter-hegemony based on Gramsci / Cox / Polanyi framework. The scholarly work is very good with extensive documentation from a wide variety of sources." Another noted: "This paper, comparing two economic trade pacts existent in the Americas today, involves both an in-depth description (substance, activities, and historical narrative) involving the two treaties, drawing on empirical data taken from official sources, as well as a significant critique, based on what seems like a very extensive reading of a wide variety of secondary sources (historical, economic, social and political)." The nominating faculty member called it "an outstanding piece", listing among its merits "the synthesis of complex material, the fact that the student has captured the essence of each regionalist project, the utilization of primary sources and theoretical analysis..."
Evaluators considered Priscila's paper, in turn, to be a "very well argued, very well researched, and very thoughtful work on an important issue", and an
"excellent paper", prize-worthy in terms of "quality of writing, level of sophistication of the analysis and coherence". The faculty member who nominated the essay considered it a "highly accomplished paper" to which the author "brought ... a considerable understanding of local laws and policies", and in which she "demonstrated a very good breadth of understanding of the interaction between environmental law and environmental management in practice [and ] made some innovative suggestions to improve conservation of biodiversity in ways that [would benefit] indigenous communities."
The essays were nominated by York faculty members and
evaluated by a two committees of CERLAC Fellows (a separate committee
for each of the two prizes).
All of the nominated papers represent high-calibre scholarly
work at their authors’ respective levels of study, and merit recognition
as worthy of candidacy for this prize. The other undergraduate papers
nominated for the 2010 prize were: Jan Anderson, “Searching for Black Canadians: Contestations over Citizenship”; Laura Liberatori, “Handling Venezuela: The Rise and Success of the Hands off Venezuela Campaign"; Nadine Ramharack, “Overcoming Adversity: The Life of Jaffroon Ali, 84 Years and Counting”; and Adrian Reyes, "Corporate Social Responsibility and Due Diligence: The Case for Ex Ante Human Rights Impact Assessments".
The other graduate-level nominee was: Paulo Ravecca, "Political science and the politics of science in Latin America".
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize was established by
the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This
$500 Prize is awarded annually to both a graduate and an undergraduate
student at York University in recognition of an outstanding scholarly
essay of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies,
from the humanities, social science, business or legal perspective.
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize and Lecture are named
in honour of Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central
to his spirit and success: the importance of his Guyanese / Caribbean
roots, his dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal
Bank of Canada, and his continued and unqualified drive and love of
learning. For more information on the essay prize, see: http://www.yorku.ca/cerlac/projects.htm#baptista. If you are a York faculty member and wish to nominate
a student’s essay for this prize, please contact CERLAC: cerlac@yorku.ca
Congratulations to all this year's nominees, and especially
to the prize winners!
New project addresses youth violence in Jamaica and Canada
CERLAC Deputy Director Andrea Davis leads new project initiative
In recent months, CERLAC Deputy Director Andrea Davis has been leading an effort to develop a new project initiative on youth violence in Canada and Jamaica. Her effort has thus far resulted in the submission of a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant proposal requesting $174,053 for a 24-month initial phase of the project. A summary of the proposal follows.
Youth and Community Development in Canada and Jamaica: A Transnational Approach to Youth Violence
The strength of this initiative resides in the diverse range of participants and the commitment of its partnerships. The project brings together six university and community organizations in a new and exciting coalition. It also assembles an impressive multidisciplinary team of researchers as co-applicants and collaborators. The partnership situates this select group of researchers and community workers within an emerging body of research that confirms the success of culturally based programs in reducing violence among youth. The partnership expands this research in two critical ways. It adds a transnational perspective and uses an approach that combines arts-based programs with social history and literature.
The partnership, thus, brings into dialogue youth, researchers, community activists, and students in Canada and Jamaica to explore how arts-based programs and the use of the humanities may help black youth address the social and cultural challenges they face. The partnership employs a holistic approach to youth development to engage youth who because of poverty, racism and the effects of violence are often assumed to be most "at risk." Rather than assuming that some youth are always-already at risk, the initiative seeks to examine how physical and systemic violence intervene in the lives of young people and disrupt their desires to function as engaged citizens. Since violent crimes in Toronto have been linked consistently with performances of Jamaican masculinity, this partnership allows us to determine whether a greater understanding of Jamaican society might help black youth in Toronto achieve the positive identity formation needed to challenge unhealthy behavior, including violence. This partnership responds directly to SSHRC's connection program in its facilitation of the multidirectional flow of research knowledge across disciplines, institutions and national borders. It also corresponds to SSHRC's insight program in its commitment to building knowledge and understanding between the two countries and encouraging engaged citizenship.
Activities over the two years are designed to create four strategic outcomes: change the behavior and action of youth; inform ongoing research; change public policy; and increase public awareness. Key audience groups include youth, researchers and community practitioners, local decision makers and policy makers, media, and the general public. By allowing youth to participate in constructing new pathways to social and civic engagement, the partnership seeks first to empower these youth. For researchers and community practitioners, the objective is to determine whether transnational arts-based programs can, indeed, help youth develop more holistic approaches to development. Will these programs be more successful in reducing youth violence and creating engaged citizens? What are the benefits and the challenges involved in engaging questions of youth violence across national, cultural and disciplinary borders? Local decision makers and policy makers will be interested in the answers to these questions and will be encouraged to use research findings to shape public policy. The media and general public will benefit from increased awareness.
The partnership encourages youth to shape and disseminate research through the use of youth forums, qualitative interviews, six-minute short documentaries, artist collective residencies and public arts performances. Community and university partners will combine knowledge, techniques and experience to produce, translate and disseminate research through conference papers, refereed journal articles, reports, policy papers, and a book. At a pedagogical level the partnership will also train students in community-based research, problem formulation, research design, data collection and analysis. The partnership will evaluate outputs and short-term outcomes through a number of indicators, including the success of performances, interviews, testimonies and statements, and website activity.
Participating CERLAC Fellows and other partners: CERLAC: Vermonja Alston, Honor Ford-Smith, Carl James, Michele Johnson, Alan Simmons and Patrick Taylor. The partnership also includes three other researchers from York (Humanities and Fine Arts) and researchers from University of Guelph, McMaster University, University of Ottawa, Goddard College in the United States, and the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. The two institutional partners are CERLAC and Institute of Caribbean Studies at UWI. Community partners include Jamaica Youth Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica; the Woodside Development Action Group in St. Mary, Jamaica; and Nia Centre for the Arts in Toronto.
Proposal seeks to Break Barriers for Latin American and Caribbean Migrants in Canada
CERLAC Fellow Michelle Johnson develops project proposal offering innovative educational programs to address challenges faced by migrant communities
Michele Johnson is awaiting word from Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding an application she submitted to CIC's program "INTER-ACTION: CANADA'S NEW MULTICULTURALISM GRANTS."
A summary of her proposal follows.
"Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges": Latin Americans and Caribbean Migrants in Canada will address the challenges facing these communities, with an emphasis on youth and youth-at-risk. Between July 1st 2011 and July 1st 2012, the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) in collaboration with Doorsteps Neighbourhood Services (DNS) will offer innovative educational programs focused on the integration of persons from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) into multicultural Canada.
These programs, facilitated by CERLAC and DNS, will include: three educational series for youth and youth-at-risk: the histories/heritages of LAC, the relationships between LAC and Canada and immigrants from LAC living in Canada; an informational workshop series specifically geared to LAC immigrants, youth and youth-at-risk; support for and expansion of language programs; and an annual international conference focused on youth and youth-at-risk experiences of immigration, integration and multiculturalism.
The project will be located at the three DNS sites in North York, Toronto and open to the public; it will bring together LAC groups to break the barriers among them and with the wider community and build bridges to full integration and citizenship.
"Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges": Latin Americans and Caribbean Migrants in Canada aims to create a model by which to create links between the youth and youth-at-risk in the many different national and cultural groups under the umbrellas of "Latin America" and "the Caribbean", which are quite separate and distinct. Additionally, the project aims to construct bridges between the Latin American and Caribbean communities, particularly the youth and youth-at-risk, and the wider Canadian community.
As one first step to building an integrated, socially cohesive society, the project intends to bring together groups of youth and youth-at-risk from the many communities associated with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and by using a number of innovative educational programs indicating how much they share.
"Latin American and Caribbean Histories and Heritages" will provide opportunities for an appreciation of the complex and often similar historical processes shared in LAC including the seismic historical shifts wrought by colonialism, enslavement, decolonization and often the resulting lags in economic development and socio-political upheaval. The module will also focus on the lessons that can be learned from the LAC regions based on the often innovative responses to difficult circumstances, heroic actions of famous and ordinary citizens and alternative perspectives of the world.
"Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada: Connections and Contributions" will encourage youth and youth-at-risk to explore the long-standing relationships between the regions and Canada as well as the contributions that each has made to the other. This module should result in more nuanced perception of the contributions of the LAC regions to the Canadian economy and society and will allow an engagement with the wider Canadian community, from a position of strength and confidence that comes with that knowledge. This will, in turn, foster civic pride and adding vibrant threads to the tapestry of civic memory that defines the ideal of multiculturalism.
"Latin American and Caribbean Migrants Living in Canada" will trace the migrations of persons from the LAC regions from the nineteenth but especially during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will discuss their settlement patterns, socio-economic contributions, civic and political activities and cultural impact, among other topics. This module will focus on the activities led by LAC migrants that encouraged collaborations across cultural/racial/ethnic and other barriers, engendered civic pride and encouraged engaged citizenship often through community service, cultural activities and sports.
These modules will be facilitated by faculty and graduate students associated with CERLAC and by the staff and volunteers at Doorstep Neighbourhood Services (DNS). They will be delivered through a combination of talks, virtual trips, films, art projects, "celebrity" appearances, social network sites, etc. and will be assessed by creative evaluation tools including art and literary projects, re-enactments and performances as well as a challenge to social action - "And, Now, What?" - to address one issue emerging from the modules and identified by the youth and youth-at risk. The social action will be designed by the youth and their facilitators and supported by the project.
The impetus for these educational modules grew out of an immensely successful one-week summer program in July 2010 which was targeted at youth 14-18 years old from the North York area. That program, of which the applicant was the Director, brought together youth and youth-at-risk who were primarily from Latin America and the Caribbean; it was the youth who expressed an interest in a more fully developed and systematic educational program where they could learn about each other and "break down barriers". This proposed project is a response to that desire.
Doris Grinspun named one of "10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians"
3rd CERLAC Fellow to receive this honour
CERLAC Associate Fellow Doris Grinspun was one of ten individuals recognized in 2010 as being among the "most influential Hispanic Canadians". CERLAC Fellows Margarita Feliciano (2008) and Eduardo Canel (2009) were previous honorees.
Below follows the description of Doris from the press release about this award.
Dr. Doris Grinspun (Chile – ON), Nursing and community
Chilean-born Doris Grinspun has been the Executive Director of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) since 1996. The association represents registered nurses in the province of Ontario with a mandate to advocate for healthy public policy. Prior to that appointment, she was director of nursing at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Grinspun has an RN diploma from Hadassah School of Nursing in Israel; a baccalaureate degree from Tel Aviv University, Israel; a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Michigan; and a PhD in sociology from York University. She has published and spoken extensively both in Canada and abroad. A forceful advocate of the Canadian healthcare system, she is regularly interviewed by Canada's media. From 1996 to 1999, Grinspun was the Chair of the Acquired Brain Injury Network of Metropolitan Toronto, a network representing all publicly funded agencies. For the past two decades Grinspun has worked extensively on many international projects in Latin and Central America, China and most recently India. Grinspun is an adjunct professor in Nursing at the University of Toronto and at York University; an associate member of the Centre for Health Promotion at the University of Toronto; an affiliate member of the Centre for Health Studies at York University; and an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CERLAC) at York University. Grinspun has received numerous professional and scholarly awards. In 2003, Grinspun received the Order of Ontario, the highest level of individual excellence and achievement in any field.
Extractive Industries Workshop lays ground for International Network
On November 6-7, 2010, a distinguished cohort of international researchers convened in Toronto for a two-day SSHRC-sponsored workshop hosted by CERLAC, to discuss future collaboration, and the possiblility of establishing a global research agenda and network on the subject of extractive industries.
The primary objectives of the workshop were to: (1) map out the currently partial and fragmented body of knowledge on Extractive Industry/EI (mining and petroleum) in order to formulate pertinent research questions to encourage a new generation of international collaborative studies; (2) initiate a discussion to set up an International Extractive Industry Research Network that links individual researchers and organized research units in Canada and abroad that share a commitment to study EI from a diversity of perspectives, and (3) lay the groundwork for collaborative research initiative(s) to advance knowledge in relation to critical questions identified in EI studies.
Scenes from the workshop
Participants made solid progress on all fronts: various potential joint research projects were identified for further discussion; the possible parameters and goals of an international network were sketched out; those gathered pledged their ongoing commitment to the network's creation; and a York-based team was delegated to prepare a Partnership Development Grant proposal for submission to SSHRC, to seek two-year funding for the further development of the network and most particularly one of its central porposed components: the creation of an Internet hub to mobilize knowledge on extractive industries among researchers, preactitioners, affected communities and other interested parties.
Workshop participants included:
Anthony Bebbington - Professor and Director, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University
BonnieCampbell - Professor, Political Science, University of Quebec in Montreal; Director, Groupe de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique
Eduardo Canel - Director, CERLAC
Catherine Coumans - Research Coordinator and responsible for the Asia-Pacific Program at MiningWatch Canada
GailFraser - Assistant Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
Ricardo Grinspun - Professor of Economics, York University
UwafiokunIdemudia - Assistant Professor, Division of Social Science, York University
StuartKirsch - Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan
Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt - Instructor, Economics and Governance, Australian National University
Marieme Lo - Assistant Professor, Women and Gender Studies and African Studies, University of Toronto
Joan Martínez Alier - Professor of Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Carlota McAllister - Assistant Professor, Anthropology, York University
Ben Naanen - Professor, History and Diplomatic Studies, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria
LiisaNorth - Professor Emerita, Political Science, York University
CynthiaSanborn - Director of the Research Center, Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Peru
MyrnaSantiago - Associate Professor of History, St. Mary's College of California
DavidSzablowski - Assistant Professor, Law & Society program, York University
Anna Zalik - Assistant Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
Graduate student participants: Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen, Sara Jackson, Charis Kamphuis, Sonja Killoran-McKibbin, Jennifer Mills, Ewa Modlinska, Francisco Nomez, Isaac Osuoka, Catalina Ponce de Leon, Leah Temper, Caren Weisbart
The workshop was organized in response to positive feedback on the spring 2009 Extractive Industries conference held at York University and a desire to build on the conference’s momentum. The possibility of ‘housing’ the network at York was suggested because of the commitment of CERLAC and the high number of faculty and graduate students working on extractive industries throughout the university.
Initiative to promote Research and Knowledge Mobilization on the Extractive Industries
CERLAC Fellow David Szabloski leads project initiative
As an outcome of the November 2010 international workshop on extractives, CERLAC Fellow David Szablowski spearheaded the preparation and submission of a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant proposal requesting $167,838 for a 24-month initiative aiming to build the foundations of an international network on extractive industries. A summary of the proposal follows.
Research and Knowledge Mobilization on the Extractive Industries: Institutionalizing a Cross-Regional Network
This project will develop and institutionalize an interdisciplinary and cross-regional research and knowledge mobilization network on extractive industries/EI (oil, mining, and gas) during 2011-2013. It builds upon the cooperative relationships established among a group of institutions and researchers that came together through two recent activities. The first of these was an international academic conference held at York University in March 2009 where participants recommended the creation of a permanent forum for research collaboration and information exchange. The second was an international expert workshop on networking and collaborative research (referred to as The Workshop below), held in November 2010, which prepared the general guidelines for this proposal.
The scholars who participated in the Workshop agree that extractive industries constitute a critical area for engaged and networked research. In regions around the world, EI are at the center of concerns about economic and social development, environmental degradation, respect for human rights, conflicts over land, water, and territory, and global governance. Systemic global studies of experiences that document the contribution of EI to social and economic development, of public policies and regulatory regimes, of issues surrounding corporate social responsibility, types of conflicts, conflict resolution patterns, and the like are missing. Comparative, interdisciplinary, and cross-regional research is needed to move beyond isolated case studies and towards more systemic analyses that can advance broader learning objectives and lead to better informed public policies. The project aims to develop and disseminate research that is accessible to different groups of actors involved in policy debates and practical experiences relating to EI development. Different actor groups (e.g. journalists, policy-makers, indigenous peoples, industry consultants, and social movement activists) have different knowledge needs, different capabilities, and face different barriers that can impede access to valuable research. The project will also develop practical knowledge about knowledge mobilization in the extractive industry field through critical engagement with actor groups and to make that knowledge accessible.
Our proposal will be carried out by groups of scholars from five partner institutions -- located in Toronto and Montréal in Canada, Barcelona in Spain, Port Harcourt in Nigeria, and Lima Peru. It aims, first of all, to support the preparation of two critical reviews of the state of knowledge?what some call "state of the art" reports at each of the five institutions, on two priority themes that were identified at The Workshop: "Investment Regimes, Regulatory Frameworks and State-Building Processes" and "Corporate Strategies, Governance and Social Responsibility." Those studies will be disseminated locally and internationally. Second, a web site will be set up to facilitate collaboration within the group and to serve the information needs of different actor groups. It will also be used to expand the Network of collaboration to other countries, researchers, and regions. Third, another workshop will be held at the end of the project's second year, with the participation of the November 2009 group and at least 2 or 3 other institutions engaged in research on EI to review the "state of the art" reports that have been prepared and to decide on the next steps for the institutionalization of a global Network on EI. Graduate students and young scholars will assist in all aspects of the project at all five partner institutions in order to train the next generation of scholars and to prepare them for major responsibilities in the further development of the Network.
Participating CERLAC Fellows and other partners: CERLAC: Anna Zalik, Ricardo Grinspun, Liisa North, Eduardo Canel, Shin Imai, Carlota McAllister. York non-CERLAC: Gail Fraser (FES); Uwa Idemudia (IDS/Social Science); Non-York: Tony Bebbington (Clark University); Joan Martinez Alier (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt (Australian National University); Bonnie Campbell (Université du Québec à Montréal); Ben Naanen (University of Port Harcourt); Cynthia Sanborn (Universidad del Pacífico); Coumans, Catherine (MiningWatch Canada); Kirsch, Stuart (University of Michigan); Lo, Marieme (University of Toronto); Osuoka, Isaac (Director of Social Action, Nigeria); Santiago, Myrna (St. Mary's College of California). Partner organizations: Ecological Economics and Integrated Assessment Unit (Eco2BCN), Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ITCA), University of Barcelona, Spain; El Centro de Investigación de la Universidad del Pacífico-CIUP (Research Center at the University of the Pacific), Peru; Le Groupe de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique-GRAMA (Research Group on Mining in Africa), University of Quebec at Montreal; Niger Delta Environmental and Relief Foundation (NIDEREF), Nigeria.
CERLAC associate Miguel Gonzalez co-edits new book on indigenous self-government
“Contemporary debates on autonomy not only influence the relations between the nation state and indigenous peoples, but they also involve other groups such as Afro-descendant peoples and the rural population. Therefore, as a whole, it is the idea of the state that is discussed in this important volume, which provides both continental assessments and case studies from national and regional experiences from the vast majority of Latin American countries.”
- Gunther Dietz, Universidad Veracruzana, México
“The contributions to this volume excel in their respective fields by their analytical quality and the geographical range of case studies, which also include elements of periodization and diachronic reflections on the historical development of autonomous regimes and self-government processes in Latin America."
- Georg Grunberg, Department de Anthropology, University of Vienna, Austria
Miguel Gonzalez holds a PhD in Political Science (York University, 2008). His research focuses on indigenous social movements, territorial autonomy regimes, and sub-national governance. He co-authored (with Pierre Frühling and Hans Peter-Buvollen) Etnicidad y Nación. El Desarrollo de la Autonomía de la Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua. 1987-2007Guatemala: F&G Editores, 2007), and is co-editor of The Rama: Struggling for Land and Culture, Nicaragua: URACCAN & University of Tromso-Norway, 2006. Currently, he teaches in the International Development Studies Program at York University in Toronto, Canada.
CBC Radio features CERLAC Visiting Speakers, Patwa Bible
Patwa Bible translators featured on CBC's Sunday Edition
On Sunday December 19, 2010, hour two of the Sunday Edition featured the following documentary: Which Will Come....To All The People: It's the Christmas story - the gospel of Luke - like you've never heard it before. Some of the sounds, some of the words are familiar. The lilt is captivating, beautiful, alive. This the Gospel of Luke in Jamaican Creole - patwa - the mother tongue of 85 percent of the people in Jamaica. It's the first completed book in a massive New Testament translation project. When the Bible Society of the West Indies released its pathbreaking work, there was recognition, gratitude and a storm of controversy on the island. Patwa - a language? Written down? Now its creators are spreading the story behind the translation - and the Good News - to the diaspora. Which is why it's General Secretary, Reverend Courtney Stewart, and young linguist Jodianne Scott landed up at York University in Toronto recently. This documentary was produced by the CBC's Frank Faulk and it's called, Which Will Come....To All The People.
CERLAC invites York grad students
to apply for membership under revised category of Research Associate
RESEARCH
ASSOCIATE: CERLAC'S MEMBERSHIP CATEGORY FOR STUDENTS
Previously, CERLAC’s membership category by which graduate
students could formally affiliate themselves with the Centre was quite
narrowly defined: Research Associates were advanced PhD students ready
to go into the field to conduct research.
Due to the narrowness of this definition, CERLAC generally
had, at any given moment, few students who were formally members of
CERLAC. Yet the number of students actively involved with CERLAC is
much higher, and we feel it would be good both for CERLAC and for
these students to provide formal recognition of their relationship
with us.
It would be good for CERLAC because it would allow us
to better reflect the actual level of student engagement with the
Centre in our official communications and reporting. It would be good
for students to be able to claim in their CVs a formal membership
status with us, to be profiled on the website as affiliated researchers,
and to have this added incentive to join a community of like-minded
scholars.
Thus, on 8 September 2010 the Executive Committee of
CERLAC approved changing the current "Research Associate"
category of membership to be more inclusive.
Any graduate student at York is now eligible for status
as a Research Associate of CERLAC if they meet all of the following
requirements:
1) The student's research interests must be relevant
to the mandate of the Centre (LACS);
2) The student must be a graduate of, or be registered
in and actively pursuing fulfillment of the requirements of, the
Graduate Diploma
Program in LACS;
3) The student must demonstrate an on-going interest
in the activities of the Centre (e.g., by attending events, participating
in consultations, responding to evaluation requests, etc.)
AND
4) At least one of the following must apply to the
student, to indicate more in-depth involvement with the Centre:
He/she must
• Work/have worked as a Graduate Assistant for CERLAC
• Serve/have served on a CERLAC committee
• Present/have presented on his/her research in a CERLAC forum
• Volunteer/have volunteered with CERLAC (e.g., in the organization
of an event or activity)
• Be/have been involved in a project or a research/study group of
CERLAC or of one of its Fellows
• Author/have authored a Bulletin, Report, Colloquia or Working
Paper in the CERLAC publication series.
Privileges of membership: will include use of the title of formal
affiliation; being profiled on the CERLAC website; having one's accomplishments
highlighted in CERLAC communications; eligibility to apply for access
to a workspace in the CERLAC suite; a 30% discount on registration
fees associated with any CERLAC event.
Term: The student will retain this status so long as
he/she continues to meet the requirements; eligibility will be re-assessed
every two years, based on the student's response to an annual questionnaire
/ request for an update on his/her activities (which will also be
used to update the individual's on-line profile).
Students who consider themselves eligible under the
terms above are invited to submit a request to become a CERLAC Research
Associate to cerlac@yorku.ca.
Each applicant should please include a CV and a statement outlining
how he/she has fulfilled the requirements.
CERLAC Fellow-supported iniatiative
to protect Amazon from oil drill signed by UNDP, Ecuador
On 3 August
2010, an initiative to keep the "oil in the soil" of the
Ecuadorean Amazon - described in a previous CERLAC
Update - received the formal sanction of the UNDP and the government
of Ecuador.
CERLAC Fellow
Carlos Larrea is the chief technical advisor for the Ecuadorean
government team that is negotiating international compensation for
“keeping oil in the soil” in the Yasuni-ITT national reserve in
the Amazon rain forest of Ecuador. Carlos considers this "an
important step toward implementing the initiative."
Under the
unprecedented agreement, known as the Yasuni-ITT
Initiative, the government of Ecuador will refrain from exploiting
the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil field within the Amazon rainforest
park, which scientists have determined to be the most biodiverse
area in all of South America.
The agreement
between Ecuador and the United Nations Development Programme creating
a trust fund to receive donations to the Yasuni-ITT Initiative was
nearly signed in December at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen,
but at the last minute, President Correa instructed his negotiators
to hold back until several sticking points were resolved.
Dolores “Lola” Figueroa helps
create diploma program to strengthen indigenous women’s leadership
Fondo Indigena secretary general
Mateo Martinez and representatives of Spanish, Belgian and
German sponsors hand out diplomas
CERLAC
Associate and PhD candidate in Sociology Dolores “Lola”
Figueroa, who originates from the pluri-ethnic autonomous
Atlantic region of Nicaragua, recently participated in the
development and inauguration of a new postgraduate diploma
program geared toward empowering indigenous women leaders
in Latin America. The program is entitled “Diplomado
para el fortalecimiento del liderazgo de la mujeres indígenas”
(Diploma for strengthening leadership among indigenous women).
Offered by the
Fondo Indigena
and the Universidad
Indigena Intercultural (UII), the first instance of
the seven-month program commenced 2 August 2010 but preparations
began more than a year before, when the Management Team
of the Fondo decided to prioritize the political participation
of indigenous women. In 2009, the German technical cooperation
agency, GTZ, recruited
Lola to undertake consultations with the leaders of various
organizations throughout the hemisphere toward developing
a curriculum for the Diploma. The curriculum was since approved
and the program launched thanks to an academic agreement
between the UII and Centro
de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología
Social (CIESAS) in Mexico. The academic coordinator
for the Diploma program is Dr. Araceli Burguete, who is
based in CIESAS.
Students
from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador in a study group, including
Carmen Rosa Sahuan (CONCAMI), Norma Mayo (CONAIE), Leonida
Zurita (las Bartolinas), and Yamila Gutierrez (CONAMAQ)
The initial
intake for the program consisted of 30 students from Mexico,
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina,
Paraguay, Colombia, Chile and Peru. Twenty-five scholarships
were provided. Course methodology combines in-person instruction
with distance education and emphasizes collaborative learning.
The formal objective of the course is to “strengthen leadership,
develop research skills and strengthen the participation
of indigenous women in organizational, public and institutional
spaces at the national and international level. To achieve
this goal, the course will encourage critical, collective
and constructive reflection on the particular condition
of indigenous women and their participation in different
spaces”.
Marcelo Vieta
edits "The New Cooperativism" journal issue
Issue
description: Cooperative practices and values that challenge
the status quo while, at the same time, creating alternative modes
of economic, cultural, social, and political life have emerged with
dynamism in recent years. The 15 articles in this issue--written by
activists, coop practitioners, theorists, historians, and researchers--begin
to make visible some of the myriad modes of cooperation existing today
around the world that both directly respond to new enclosures and
crises and show pathways beyond them. Prefiguring other possibilities
for organizing life and provisioning for our needs and desires, we
call these cooperative experiments the new cooperativism.
The
issue includes articles on Venezuela and Argentina.
(all articles
can be read online or downloaded in PDF)
Paulo Ravecca delivers online
course on Neoliberalism and the turn to the left in Latin America
CERLAC
Research Associate Paulo Ravecca recently delivered a seven-week
online course, which commenced August 2, 2010, through CEBEM (Centro
Boliviano de Estudios Multidisciplinarios). CERLAC is currently
collaborating with CEBEM on the IDRC-funded project “North-South
Knowledge Partnerships: Promoting the Canada-Latin America Connection”.
Ravecca’s
course - entitled "Pensando
la actualidad latinoamericana: “Neoliberalismo”, “giro a la izquierda”,
“populismo” y otros dilemas continentales" - addressed
the questions: What is neoliberalism? How is it expressed in Latin
America? It also investigated “el giro a la izquierda”, or the
“turn to the left”, in Latin America, asking whether the manifestations
of this trend are socialist or populist, authoritarian or democratic
in nature, and interrogating the role of the social sciences,
and political science in particular, in these contexts.
Paulo
Ravecca (PhD candidate, Political Science, York University) received
his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the Faculty of
Social Sciences of la Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay,
and his Masters in Political Science at York University (Toronto,
Canada). His interests includ; political theory and critical thinking,
political economy and international relations, the state, public
politics and development, critical epistemology, sexuality and
gender. He is one of the lead organizers of the Latin American
Politics study group at York.
Steven Schnoor wins case
against Canadian ambassador over Guatemalan mining video
In January
2007, CERLAC Research Associate Steven Schnoor (PhD Candidate,
Communication & Culture, joint program offered by York and
Ryerson Universities) shot a short documentary depicting the Canadian
mining company Skye Resources violently evicting Mayan Q'eqchi'
communities from their lands near El Estor, Guatemala.
Steven
was in Central America at the time on an academic grant - Students
For Development, administered by the AUCC and funded by CIDA -
investigating the relationships between Canadian mining companies
operating in the region and the communities affected by their
activities. The week prior to the evictions, he was in Honduras'
Siria Valley investigating Goldcorp's open-pit gold/silver mine
(the San Martín mine; see Steven's online hour-long
documentary on the Siria Valley). While there, he heard that
the evictions would be happening in El Estor, so he headed to
the region to document whatever might transpire.
After
his video of the evictions began circulating on YouTube, Canada's
ambassador to Guatemala, Kenneth Cook, spread misinformation about
the video, suggesting that it was fabricated. Steven subsequently
sued him for defamation.
The trial
took place in the second week of June 2010 in Toronto, and the
verdict came down on June 17. The judge ruled in Steven's favour,
finding that the Ambassador’s statements “were defamatory” and
were “not true”, that they “raised questions about [Steven’s]
credibility”.
The judge
observed that, based on the Ambassador’s comments, “any reasonable
person would conclude that . . . [Steven] was a maker of fraudulent
videos”. She further stated that “the Ambassador was reckless.
He should have known better”, and that the defamation “was serious”:
the comments “could have done great and long lasting damage”.
Finally, she said that she considered “the dead silence” from
the Canadian government in response to Steven’s attempts to get
a reasonable response from government to be “spiteful and oppressive”,
and awarded Steven neary $10,000 in damages and legal costs.
Steven
testified at trial that the Ambassador’s comments served to undermine
the credibility of the people in the video.
“I am glad that there has finally been some accountability for
the Ambassador’s actions. As the judge said, this defamation was
serious,” Steven said.
“To me, this is a very big problem – it’s not just about me and
one particular video. I am concerned that this is an example of
how the Government of Canada is quick to discount the voices of
people who are harmed by Canadian mining companies. I hope that
more Canadians will lend their voice to the growing numbers who
are already saying that this is not what they expect from their
government.”
Steven
Schnoor screens his on-line video to members of a community
affected by the evictions he documented
(after they had returned to the lands from which the had been
removed.)
Steven
further notes: "Cook's actions also had the effect of endangering
an academic doing research abroad; if rumour were to spread
that I had fabricated a document ostensibly to make a mining
company look bad, I could have easily become targeted by those
in Guatemala who wished for the mining project to advance. Indeed,
people with whom I'd been working in the area had received death
threats because their work was perceived to endanger the operation
of Canadian mining companies in the region. This a point which
didn't really get much media coverage, but which the CAUT [Canadian
Association of University Teachers] immediately picked up
on as soon as I went public with having been slandered. CAUT's
president and executive director (Greg Allain and James Turk)
co-wrote a letter
to Peter MacKay (then Minister of Foreign Affairs) about
this."
Asked
if this experience might impact his current academic work, Steven
replied:
It
certainly will, in that one of the things that interests me
is means by which certain voices are deemed to be illegitimate,
and others deemed to be legitimate ('stakeholders,' as we're
told). There's a whole literature on power and communication
(Habermas and his many critics, Bourdieu on language and symbolic
violence, etc.) that this case engages with in interesting
ways. It also engages with political-economic analyses of
commercial media as 'purveyors of hegemony,' for lack of a
better term, given that there is seldom any commercial media
interest in these issues (and indeed there was nothing about
the evictions when they first happened).
That
said, the fact that I could get the video out in public circulation
fairly easily via YouTube, and then was able to sue a powerful
official for an act that served to jettison certain voices
as illegitimate (both mine and the voices depicted in the
video), as well as the fact that the ordeal did manage to
get a little bit of media coverage - both commercial and public,
all serve to demonstrate that these are terrains of contestation
- that we can indeed carve out spaces in which we can struggle
within/against the dominant forces that shape our understandings
of these issues... and spaces/strategies of resistance will
be one area of focus in my dissertation.
Steven's
dissertation focuses on "how discourses of democracy have
been used to advance anti-democratic projects and how discourses
of development have been used to advance projects that are fundamentally
destructive and exploitative."
For
details about the case, as well as background information and
multimedia resources on the community eviction documented by
Schnoor, and on the broader issue of Canadian involvement in
Guatemala, click here.
A recommendation from Steven: If people are concerned
about the abuses perpetrated by Canadian mining companies operating
abroad and a Canadian government which not only resists regulation
and accountability mechanisms but actually actively supports
these endeavours, they might wish to get involved in initiatives
to use government as an effective regulator of corporate activity,
and not just cheerleader and facilitator of these activities.
The only initiative currently before Parliament
in this regard is Bill C-300. It is a very modest bill, but
a good first step in addressing the problem. Industry, however,
has been lobbying against it so intensely that the only way
that it will pass when it comes to its third vote in October
2010 is if Canadians en masse get behind it: if they call and
write MPs expressing their support for the bill, if they educate
themselves and others on these issues, etc. [Steven himself
testified
before the Parliamentary committee considering the bill,
urging them to pass it.]
For more information on C-300, as well
sample letters, click here.
Alison Crosby organizes
LASA panel on women confronting impunity in Guatemala
CERLAC Fellow Alison Crosby has organized the following
panel in the 2010 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA) which is taking place in Toronto, October 6-9, 2010.
Confronting Impunity:
Women’s Struggles of Justice, Historical Memory, and Reparation
in Guatemala
GEN 6459 Thursday October 7th, 10:30-12:15
This panel brings together psychologists, lawyers,
sociologists, and feminist activist researchers who are engaged
in struggles for justice and reparation in postwar Guatemala
alongside women survivors of sexual violence. Panelists will
analyze initiatives to combat gendered impunity and create historical
memory, including a three-year study of women’s oral histories
of experiences of sexual violence in the war, a precedent-setting
court case, and a Tribunal of Conscience, within a transnational
feminist agenda for reparation and gender justice.
Panel Presenters/Papers:
Brisna Caxaj, Union Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas
(UNAMG) La lucha del movimiento de mujeres por la justicia y el
rescate de la memoria histórica: Por el derecho a una
vida sin violencia para las mujeres
Lucia Morán, Mujeres Transformando el Mundo El uso estratégico de la acción legal para
romper impunidades históricas que vulneran a las mujeres
en Guatemala
Olga Alicia Paz Bailey, Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios
y Acción Psicosocial - ECAP Mujeres Rompiendo el Silencio: el camino hacia la justicia
Alison Crosby, York University and M. Brinton
Lykes, Boston College Claiming Subjectivity: An agenda for reparation for survivors
of sexual violence
Discussant: Karen Hammink, Impunity Watch
Chair: Professor Brinton Lykes, Boston
College
Rudy Grant remembered
CERLAC associate and York Professor Emeritus Rudy
Grant (1931 - 2010) passed away on Monday, June 14, 2010 at Sunnybrook
Health Sciences Centre. CERLAC deeply regrets his passing.
From "Share"
newspaper on-line edition, June 23rd, 2010
By RON FANFAIR
Dr.
Rudy Grant's entire professional career was dedicated to teaching
and improving the lives and minds of young people and adults.The
lifelong educator and political scientist, who taught at York
University for 31 years before retiring in December 1998, died
last Monday in Toronto after a lengthy illness. He was 79.
York
University has been central to the academic development of many
Caribbean immigrants and Grant left his mark as one of the key
educators who played a leading role in providing educational
and social advancement.He
and fellow Guyanese-born Professor Emeritus Dr. Wolseley "Percy"
Anderson pioneered Inter-Disciplinary Studies at the university
and co-researched studies for the Ontario Ministry of Education
in 1975 on the challenges that Caribbean immigrants faced in
adjusting in the school system in a new country.The
resulting report, The New Newcomers, was used as resource
material by teachers and researchers across Canada.
Justice
of the Peace Dr. Odida Quamina said Grant was his teacher, mentor,
friend and guide."He
was the first university professor I met when I came to Canada
from Guyana in 1972," said Quamina. "At the time,
I was a young revolutionary who came here to get my Bachelor
of Arts degree and return home. It was Rudy who encouraged me
to move from a B.A. to a Masters and then on to a doctorate.
He was the 'go-to' professor when you wanted something done
and he steered me and a lot of bright and enthusiastic young
newcomers from the Caribbean in the 1970s in the right direction."
Lawyer
Aston Hall said Grant encouraged him to pursue law and engage
in community service."Rudy
taught us how to be critical and he was an inspiration to me,"
said Hall. "Because of him, I understood that I could do
things and there was no limit to what I wanted to achieve. He
was a major force in my academic development."
Grant
taught in Guyana before pursuing history studies and a Graduate
Teaching Diploma in Education at the University of the West
Indies from 1957-1961. Two years later, he secured a Graduate
Academic Diploma in Education from the University of London
through external study.
He received
his Masters in 1966 and his Ph.D. in Political Science from
the University of Toronto in 1970.Grant
joined York University as a part-time instructor in the summer
of 1967 and received full-time appointment two years later.In
the early 1970s, he was at the forefront of a movement trying
to raise Black consciousness in Toronto. He supervised youth
at St. Christopher House and attended United Negro Improvement
Association meetings after classes. He also helped organize
the Black Heritage Education project that provided assistance
to students in need and co-founded the Thorncliffe Park Black
Heritage Association.
Grant
is survived by his wife and two children, younger brother Dr.
Joe Grant, a former Toronto Catholic District School board principal
and owner of the defunct Cutty's Hideaway restaurant, and sister
Ornette Willis.
A younger
brother, Cedric, passed away five years ago on June 15. He was
an assistant professor in the department of Political Science
at the University of Waterloo and a former Guyana ambassador
to the United States and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
The
funeral service took place last Saturday [June 19].
The York-URACCAN partnership
lives on! Another graduate from Nicaragua's autonomous regions
is hosted by York
URACCAN UPDATE by Harry Smaller
In 1995 CERLAC and York University began a long-standing
partnership with URACCAN
(the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast
of Nicaragua), at the time newly established as the first post-secondary
institution in the region. URACCAN was, and remains, an exciting
new model for educational institutions everywhere. It was established
with a democratic governance structure designed to represent the
multi-racial, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of a region
which has long suffered from both economic exploitation and social
neglect for much of its history. Its founding mandate has remained
clear: enhancing the economic, social, health, educational and
cultural development of the region.
The last 15 years has seen a number of exciting
and productive engagements between York and URACCAN. Of major
importance was CERLAC’s
Tier 2 UPCD project, which ran from 1997 to 2003. Funded by
CIDA, the overall aim of the project was two-fold: first, to strengthen
URACCAN's capacity to meet the region's needs in the areas of
poverty alleviation, sustainable development, and community development;
and second, to strengthen the knowledge-base and research capacities
of York University and CERLAC with regard to the developmental
and socio-cultural issues of the region. The project involved
five main theme activities: faculty development, program/curriculum
development, community outreach, enhancing research capacity and
provision of information and communications equipment and materials.
By all accounts it was highly successful (among other criteria,
it won honourable mention at a CIDA awards ceremony for international
projects), and among its many outcomes, 20 URACCAN “docentes”
completed all academic requirements and received York Masters’
degrees.
Since that time, our partnership, albeit with much
more limited funding, has remained strong. Two of the docentes
who completed Masters’ degrees through the UPCD project subsequently
received doctoral scholarships to York. Miguel Gonzalez
has now completed his PhD in Political Science; Dolores
Figueroa is hoping to defend her dissertation (based
on comparative research on indigenenous women's participation
in Nicaragua and Ecuador) in the near future. In addition, for
several years now York undergrad and grad students have undertaken
three-month summer internships at URACCAN, through auspices of
York’s International Internship Program. This year, six student
teachers from York’s Faculty of Education undertook a month of
practice teaching in elementary and secondary schools on the Caribbean
Coast of Nicaragua, with the logistical support of URACCAN. And
during the fall of 2009, URACCAN head librarian Mercedes
Tinoco from the Bilwi Campus spent five months at York,
undertaking research for her doctoral studies at the Universidad
de Costa Rica, related to the experiences and successes of
Aboriginal students registered at URACCAN.
Most recently, York and CERLAC have had the opportunity
to host Glénis Escobar, a docente at the
Bilwi Campus. Glénis also spent five months at York, researching
and completing her Masters’ thesis, aided by the financial support
of a Canadian ELAP
scholarship (“Emerging Leaders in Latin America Program”).
In addition to teaching at URACCAN, Glénis is a longtime
social activist in her region, including work in relation to community
health issues. Her thesis research and writing was based on a
series of in-depth interviews she undertook with 10 Miskitu women
living with HIV/Aids in the Bilwi area, and the ways in which
their indigenous “cosmovision” informed their life experience
and intersected with their capacity to deal effectively with their
situations. A major part of her analysis involved the development
of a number of recommendations for ways in which institutions
and agencies on the Coast could work to alleviate the stigma and
discrimination which many of these women suffered as a result
of their particular medical conditions, and their particular social/cultural
placement within their larger community. Although her degree will
be awarded through URACCAN, the university gave permission for
her to defend her thesis at York, involving a committee of York
faculty members. Congratulations to Glénis for a very successful
defence, and many thanks to Professors Debbie Brock and Kamala
Kempadoo for willingly taking on this responsibility.
The York-URACCAN partnership lives on! At the present
time, we await the arrival of Johanna Lopez from
the Bluefields campus, who was recently awarded a similar ELAP
scholarship. Hopefully, we can look forward to many more years
of continuing close relationship with URACCAN!
Article from URACCAN Al Día (Digital)
11 June, 2010 (translation follows); photo shows Prof. Harry Smaller
and Glénis
Escobar during her defence:
URACCAN
instructor defends thesis in York
Committee
ranks Glénis Escobar's research as "excellent"
By
Gretta Páiz
"Social
discrimination against women living with HIV and AIDS: A Miskitu
indigenous perspective" is the title of the thesis by Glénis
Escobar - sociologist, translator and URACCAN instructor
- that was awarded the rank of "excellent" by her
defence committee at York University.
According to Escobar's findings, "women with
HIV-AIDS have been subjected to discrimination mainly from their
families, friends and neighbours, and they consider their condition
to be the result of a curse, bad spirits, or punishment from
God." They also admit that, although "they take anti-retroviral
drug treatments, they continue also to administer their own
herbal cures."
Her research observes that, although these women
know something about Law 238 (the "Law to Promote and Protect
the Human Rights of People with AIDS"), information about
this and other, related laws must be better disseminated to
combat discrimination against those with HIV and AIDS.
Glénis spent 5 months in Canada, during
which time she completed her MA in HIV-AIDS Management and Prevention,
with the support of URACCAN, York University and the Emerging
Leaders in the Americas Program (ELAP), to all of whom she expresses
her thanks.
Shin Imai honored for excellence
in teaching
CERLAC Fellow Shin Imai is recipient of an annual President’s
University-Wide Teaching Awards (UWTA) in the senior full time category
for faculty with 10 or more years of teaching experience. His nominator,
the associate dean at Osgoode Hall Law School, notes: "Shin is
renowned as one of the most talented and admired teachers in the Osgoode
community... He has inspired not only his students but also many of
his colleagues".
In recognition of her skill and dedication as an instructor
and supervisor, CERLAC Fellow Deb Barndt has received a new Dean’s
Teaching Award in the Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), created
to highlight extraordinary teaching at York University.
CERLAC Fellows contribute to
latest NACLA issue on "Canada in the Americas"
CERLAC Fellows Ricardo Grinspun, Yasmine Shamsie, and
Max Cameron are all contributors to the latest issue of NACLA, entitled
"Empire's Apprentice:
Canada in Latin America" (May/June 2010).
Description: Behind Canada's do-gooder facade in the
Americas is a country torn in contradictory directions, not all of
which are particularly benevolent. Under the government of Conservative
prime minister Stephen Harper, three factors have exerted a powerful
influence on Canadian involvement in Latin America: (1) corporate
interests, particularly extractive industries, (2) politicians’ commitment
to free market fundamentalism, and (3), above all, the government’s
frankly slavish alignment with U.S. foreign policy. This disposition
has increasingly undermined Canada’s traditional reputation and has
sent an unfortunate message to the region: Tory Canada is the Empire’s
apprentice.
Canadian Re-engagement in Latin America: Missing the Mark
Again Ricardo
Grinspun and Yasmine
Shamsie
Both Conservative and Liberal governments in Ottawa have expounded
their faith in neoliberalism. With its new policy of re-engaging Latin
America, the Harper government remains undaunted.
A Diplomatic Theater of the Absurd: Canada, the OAS, and
the Honduran Coup Maxwell
A. Cameron and Jason Tockman
Throughout the Honduran crisis, Canada moved in lockstep with the
United States. Doing so clashed with Canada’s frequently stated commitment
to multilateralism and democracy.
CERLAC organizes two sessions
on "Canada in the Americas" for 2010 Congress of the Humanities
& Social Sciences
Two consecutive sessions on "Canada in the Americas"
organized by the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean
(CERLAC) at York University and jointly hosted by the Canadian Association
for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS)
and the Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA)
will be held at the Congress
of the Humanities and Social Sciences starting in Montreal later
this month.
The workshop will be on Wednesday, June 2, 8:45-12:00
AM, room FG C080 at Concordia University in Montreal.
From the Program: In this two-part panel, nine leading
thinkers consider essential networks, tensions, rifts and opportunities
in Canada’s increasingly intense relationship with the Americas. Participants
examine the relationship between Latin American and Canadian academic,
labour and policy centres. Panel Presentation
Canada in the Americas Part 1
8:45-10:15 Wednesday, 2 June
Room: FG C080
Joint Panel CALACS/CPSA
Many CERLAC Fellows and Associates will be presenting
papers and playing different roles in the Congress, as illustrated
by the following list (taken from the program, in order of appearance):
Panel: Reforms of Judicial Systems in Latin America
Chair: Albert Berry, CERLAC Fellow
Amaya Paulina Alvez Marín, CERLAC Research
Associate Aiming for Sameness Through Judicial Balancing? Problematizing
Comparative Constitutional Law in Latin America
Panel: Race, Development, and the Nation:
Bermuda, Dominica, and the French Caribbean
Chair: Juanita de Barros, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Natural Resource Exploitation and
Environmental Concerns
Tanya Chung Tiam Fook, CERLAC Research Associate A Win-Win Strategy for All? Exploring the Implication of
Guyana´s Climate Change Strategies for Indigenous Communities
Panel: Migraciones y exilios latinoamericanos
en Europa y Canadá
Chair: Daniel Schugurensky, CERLAC Fellow
Discussant: Judith Hellman, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Neoliberalism in Latin America: Continuity
and Change
Chair: Eduardo Canel, CERLAC Fellow
Ruth Felder, CERLAC Research Associate Argentina en la crisis del neoliberalismo. Cambios y continuidades
(1990s-2000s)
Roundtable: Four Decades of Latin American
and Caribbean Research Institutions in Canada
Chair: Albert Berry, CERLAC Fellow
Participant: Liisa North, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Canadian connections: Commerce, and
Carnival in the Caribbean and the Diaspora
Nadine Hunt, CERLAC Research Associate Scotland, Jamaica and the Role of Trust in the Expansion
of Caribbean Trade, 1750-1800
Panel: Navigating Colombia's Civil War:
A New Direction?
Jasmin Hristov, CERLAC Research Associate “Señores de la guerra”, Auto-Defensas, or BACRIM?
Towards a New Conceptualization of Paramilitarism in Colombia
Panel: Water Treatment and Environmental
Risks
Chair & Discussant: Harry Polo Diaz, CERLAC
Fellow
Panel: Palimpsest, Deconstruction and New
Imaginaries
Tanita Muneshwar, CERLAC Research Associate Deconstructing ‘tropicality’ and Racial Miscegenation in
Nancy Leys Stepan’s Picturing Tropical Nature
Panel: Agriculture, Human Rights and Environmental
Risks
Chair: Lynne Phillips, CERLAC Fellow
Simon Granovsky-Larsen, CERLAC Research Associate Land Access Programs Available to Guatemalan Campesinos,
1962-2009: Predecessors to Agrarian Reform?
Panel: Canada in the Americas Part 1
Ricardo Grinspun, CERLAC Fellow, and Jennifer
Mills, York University Canada’s Trade Engagement with the Americas: Sailing With
or Against the Tide?
John Kirk, CERLAC Fellow Canada-Cuba Relations: From Bad to Worse under the Harper
Government
Panel: Indentured labour, diaspora and identity:
The Chinese and the Indian diaspora
Discussant: Juanita de Barros, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Redefinition of Female Roles in Public
Life
Chair: Lynne Phillips, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Canada in the Americas Part 2
Chair: Ricardo Grinspun, CERLAC Fellow
Liisa North, CERLAC Fellow
Bad Neighbors: Canadian Mining Companies in
Latin America
Panel: Challenges of Industrialization in
a Global Economy
Chair: Eduardo Canel, CERLAC Fellow
Albert Berry, CERLAC Fellow The Challenge of Lowering Inequality: What Latin America
Can Learn from the History of Industrial Countries
Keynote Speaker II: Inaugural Kurt Levy
Lecture
Maxwell A. Cameron, CERLAC Fellow Texts, Media, and Constituent Power: Latin America from
Ancient to Modern Times
Panel: Latin American Women's Citizenship:
Current Trends in Policies and Politics
Lucy Luccisano, CERLAC Fellow Mexico’s Centre-Right Government, Public Policies and Women’s
Citizenship
Panel: Understanding Diasporic Latinidad
in Canada: New Approaches to the Study of Latinas/os in Canada
Daniel Schugurensky, CERLAC Fellow Examining two educational paradoxes of Latin Americans in
Canada
Panel: Women in Search of Political and
Working Spaces
Chair: Kalowatie Deonandan, CERLAC Fellow
Lynne Phillips, CERLAC Fellow, and Sally Cole,
University of Windsor Feminisms and Publics: Working Spaces of Democracy in Brazil
and Ecuador
Panel: Women, Intra-Regional Migration and the Issues
of Rights
Chair: Tanya Basok, CERLAC Fellow
Roundtable: Area Studies and the Role of
Study Abroad Programs in Latin American Studies
Chair: Laura Macdonald, CERLAC Fellow
Laura Macdonald, CERLAC Fellow 10 years of North American Studies exchanges at Carleton
Lucy Luccisano, CERLAC Fellow North American Studies and Mobility Programs: Reflections
on Student Learning
Panel: Migrant Women and Rights Activism:
the Role of Nongovernmental, Regional, and International Organizations
Nicola Piper, University of Windsor, and Tanya
Basok, CERLAC Fellow Engendering Migration Governance: International Organizations
and the Promotion of Norms in Latin America
Panel: Reimagining America and the Cuban
Nation
John Kirk, CERLAC Fellow Exploring the Rationale for Cuban Medical Internationalism
Panel: Re-examining the Governance of Resource
Extractive Sectors in Latin America
Sonja Killoran-McKibbin, CERLAC Research Associate Unnatural Resources: International Development Aid and Hydrocarbon
Exploitation in Bolivia
Kalowatie Deonandan, CERLAC Fellow State Response to Community Resistance in Guatemala’s Extractive
Sector
Panel: Armed Conflicts in Latin America
Chair: Liisa North, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Bilingualism and Hybridity
Chair: Daniel Schugurensky, CERLAC Fellow
Panel: Emigration and Migration within Latin
America
Brigitte Cairus, CERLAC Research Associate Gypsy Brazil: Identity, Migration and Ethnic Politics among
Brazilian Romanies, 1936-2007
Panel: Media in Latin America: Alternative
Views
Marta Silva, CERLAC Research Associate “The Indigenous View”: Ethnic Activism and Audiovisual Production
in Mato Grosso do Sul
Panel: Building the Canadian empire in Latin
America and the Caribbean
Chair: Jasmin Hristov, CERLAC Research Associate
Panel: Negotiating the Globalization Process
in the Caribbean
Chair: Kalowatie Deonandan, CERLAC Fellow
Academics, activists gather
in Colombia for closing conference of human rights project
RedLEIDH project
partners reflect on five years of collaboration and accomplishment
By William Payne
They flew in from every corner of Latin America: human
rights academics with solid activist credentials. Coming from universities
and research centres throughout the hemisphere, they joined with Canadian
scholars and Colombian social justice leaders at Colombia’s National
University in Bogota, Colombia, in February 2010, to break open some
of the key questions that the region faces.
The two-day conference for which they all convened,
entitled “University and Civil Society in Defence of Human Rights,
the Challenge in Latin America,” was also the final event of the RedLEIDH
project. RedLEIDH (an acronym from the Spanish for “the Latin
American Human Rights Education & Research Network”) was a five-year,
CIDA-funded project led by Prof.
Viviana Patroni of York University’s Centre for Research
on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) and Prof.
Shin Imai of Osgoode Hall Law School. The conference
provided a rich overview of the project’s accomplishments and served
as a launching point for ongoing collaboration among the project’s
partners.
The site for the event was not chosen by accident: Colombia,
a vibrant, diverse society in the throws of a civil war which has
raged for more than five decades, has been referred to as the “open
wound” of the region, a place unable to staunch the blood-letting
associated with the gross social inequalities of the hemisphere. What
better place in which to continue the work of unpacking this structural
violence (not lacking in connections to Canada), and to once again
imagine ways forward?
RedLEIDH project co-directors
Shin Imai and Viviana Patroni
At the event, speakers with a wealth of experience shared
their stories, analysis and recommendations, providing along the way
a retrospective overview of the RedLEIDH project's many accomplishments.
In the opening panel, Diana Avila,
a noted Colombian feminist human rights leader, deplored the ongoing
criminalization of difference and called on those working for social
justice to draw the connections between different struggles, while
Sofia Tiscornia of Argentina’s CELS stressed that
researchers and activists must work together in the ongoing development
of multipronged efforts using litigation, policy work and social activism
to construct a world more inclined towards the respect of human rights.
In a spirited discussion concerning the role of education
for and about human rights, Ana Maria Rodino of IIDH
highlighted their work with civil servants, and stressed the role
of education in taking human rights into the practical realm. Fabián
Salvioli, director of Argentina’s La Plata National University
Human Rights Institute and member of the UN’s Human Rights Committee,
lamented that too often the university sector sees itself outside
of the real world struggle for human rights. He called for the explicit
integration of a human rights framework into the university sector
and across the curriculum, and underlined the “revolutionary role”
of the university in terms of participating in the transformation
of society where human rights are assured. Amanda Romero
spoke of her own experience facilitating human rights education for
indigenous peoples, Afro-descendent communities and family members
of victims. Outlining the long history of popular education addressing
structural causes of violence in the hemisphere, she emphasized the
need to recognize the agency of those who have been victimized in
questioning hegemonic models for societal organization, and highlighted
the importance of the new social movements and critical feminist theory
in advancing towards a world where all are not only “able to live”
but also to “live well.”
The successes and challenges of RedLEIDH-supported human
rights education programs were debated in the third panel: Lamenting
that too often educational systems merely copy the verticalism of
social systems, Randall Brenes discussed research
conducted by IIDH under the auspices of RedLEIDH which examined the
advances and challenges faced by human rights education in 19 countries
of the region. Noting that human rights education cannot be separated
from the right to education, Brenes spoke of the online teacher training
programs they have developed with the project’s assistance. Carlos
Valdés, a professor from Universidad Santo Tomás
(Colombia), spoke of an epidemic of extrajudicial killings that are
not investigated, and then outlined the way their Masters program
is training practitioners to make better use of forensic tools to
expose grave human rights violations and reduce impunity. The Santo
Tomás Masters program is one of five such programs which have
been supported through the RedLEIDH project.
Regional representatives of
COMOSOC
Mariella Saetonne outlined the development
- in conjunction with IIDH and with assistance from RedLEIDH - of
AUSJAL’s human rights education diploma program for mid-career professionals.
Using a distance education model based on a horizontal relationship
between students and instructors, diploma programs now exist in Uruguay,
Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Students focus on one of three areas: ‘access to justice’, ‘citizenship
participation’ or ‘human rights education’. A lively debate explored
related themes, including state responsibility for serious human rights
violations despite the adoption of human rights rhetoric, as well
as the limits of the role of the university in the protest/proposal
continuum.
The public interest legal clinics sector has made significant
advances in recent years and the RedLEIDH project has contributed
to this important development by supporting the work of ILSA, CELS,
the Latin American Network of Public Interest Legal Clinics and some
of the universities associated with the project. Beatriz Londono,
head of the Public Action Group, a university-based legal clinic associated
with Universidad del Rosario, which is a member of the Latin American
network, outlined some of the successes and challenges they have faced
while addressing such issues as environmental protection, public security
and disaster prevention. Luz María Gil, coordinator
of a legal clinic at the Jesuit University Andrés Bello in
Venezuela, emphasized the role their clinic has played in developing
students’ sense of social commitment. Francisco Cox,
a lawyer associated with Chile’s Diego Portales University legal clinic,
also part of the regional network, emphasized the role of legal clinics
in developing strategic litigation with social impact.
Ana María Maya, coordinator
of a network of legal clinics supported by ILSA that serves forcibly
displaced persons, outlined how they have made use of legislation
requiring all law students to be involved in legal clinics serving
marginalized persons, in order to address practical needs of thousands
of people adversely affected by ongoing violent social transformation
in Colombia. Maya noted that, despite the absence of state protection
for the rights of displaced persons, this RedLEIDH-supported initiative
is benefiting displaced persons, and also provides opportunities to
law students and their universities to understand the social role
of law as a profession.
"The Struggle for Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights" panel
RedLEIDH has consistently sought to underline the importance
of economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) as part of the full
complement of rights which need to be protected in a just society.
This was the topic of a lively panel on the second day of the conference.
In a presentation based on recent research, ILSA’s Libardo
Herreno opened the ESCR panel by outlining the broad struggles
which are taking place across the region, highlighting the link to
economic development processes . Ana Lucía Casallas of the
Coalition of Colombian
Social Movements and Organizations (COMOSOC), a network
supported by RedLEIDH, related respect for civil and political rights
to the struggle for social and economic justice and outlined some
of the proposals of COMOSOC’s campaign “The right to express ourselves
without losing our lives.” Eliud Alvear, a community
leader, provided a case study of a local struggle for ESC rights in
face of state repression, corporate manipulation and paramilitary
violence, and stressed the conviction of his community that nonviolent
struggle will be successful.
The closing panel focused on Canada’s role in human
rights protection in Latin America. York University’s Ricardo Grinspun reviewed the historical development
of an international system of protection of commercial interests which
is often at odds with the national and international human rights
protection system, outlining the progression of Canadian free trade
agreements relying on asymmetrical bilateral negotiations with weaker
partners in order to provide benefits to Canadian business. Etienne
Roy Gregoire of Université du Quebec a Montreal explored
the specific case of governance of the global mining sector, noting
that mining companies’ use of private security is expanding, as is
the Canadian government’s promotion of mining code reform in countries
where Canadian mining companies have interests. He lamented that the
recent focus on ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) does not address
the fundamental issues, and noted that CSR cannot replace the state’s
fundamental right and responsibility to decide where mining should
or shouldn’t occur, based on the public good.
Louise Casselman of the Public Service
Alliance of Canada represented the Americas
Policy Group, a working group that includes forty Canadian
organizations concerned with human rights in the hemisphere. Emphasizing
the need for new tools to address emerging realities, she called for
a moratorium on free trade agreements and for the removal of chapter
11 provisions which take away the state’s right to protect its own
citizens. She underlined that there is a fundamental need to examine
the prevailing global economic model. COMOSOC’s Omar Fernandez
discussed their work in conjunction with Canadian civil society
organizations to raise issues related to the protection of human rights.
Noting how this transnational work has already served to slow the
implementation of a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia,
he invited Canadian civil society to maintain an ongoing relationship
with their coalition.
The conference concluded with a lively discussion in
which it was observed that, while we are no longer in the historical
moment when Canadian ambassadors physically accompany refugees in
Latin America, there is still great value to be derived from south-north
collaboration through university and civil society networks committed
to human rights. It was a fitting closure to the final major activity
of the RedLEIDH project.
In addition to the various programs referenced in the
conference, other key activities supported by the RedLEIDH project
include advocacy work in the area of public policy and in promotion
of an independent judiciary, and the publication of important human
rights research by many of the partner organizations. With regard
to advocacy work, of particular note has been the work of CELS to
incline the Argentine government towards greater respect for human
rights in its immigration law and its prison system, as well as ILSA’s
concerted programming with Colombian judges to develop capacity for
a judiciary which better promotes universal respect for human rights.
In terms of publications, over two dozen, covering a range of issues
related to human rights, were produced by ILSA, CELS, AUSJAL, IIDH,
COMOSOC and Landavar University with assistance from RedLEIDH.
Project participants from CERLAC and Osgoode are happy
to have made a contribution to the improvement of human rights in
the hemisphere by supporting the work of their partner organizations.
Each of these partners boasts its own long and committed history of
working for human rights and social justice in the region. The York-based
participants are pleased to have contributed to their ongoing struggle,
and are eager to acknowledge that this project involved a truly collaborative
process of mutual learning. In Latin America, as everywhere, the battle
for the universal protection of human rights is long and often fraught
with difficulty. The participants in the RedLEIDH project are glad
to have had the opportunity to join with their partners during this
particular chapter in the history of the struggle for human rights
in the region. They are also confident that, although the formal programming
of the RedLEIDH project has finished, the work completed and the relationships
forged over the past five years will continue to bear fruit.
Carlota McAllister researches
dam conflict in Chilean Patagonia
"Alterity
within capitalism: making property and appropriating nature
in a dam conflict in Chilean Patagonia"
CERLAC
Fellow Carlota McAllister's SSHRC-supported research project will
take her to the Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia, which lies
fifteen hundred kilometres south of Santiago, a vast, rugged land
of mountains, glaciers, and powerful rivers, surrounded by imposing
natural obstacles, and accessible by road only since the 1980s.
Despite
Aysén's remoteness, Cochrane, a small town in its far south,
has become the epicentre of a battle between multinational energy
consortium HidroAysén and a well-funded alliance of conservationists
over a proposed $3 billion plan to build a series of hydroelectric
dams on two of Aysén's major rivers. Caught in the middle are
Cochrane's longstanding residents, members of Chile's small community
of cattle- and sheep-herding gauchos.
Carlota's
research project will investigate how gauchos and other participants
in the dam conflict, despite their shared sense that property and
property rights are what is at stake, nonetheless ground their rights
claims in fundamentally incommensurable relationships among humans
and non-humans. Examining this incommensurability in action in the
dam conflict, Carlota's proposal asserts, will provide a window onto
the contradictions and instabilities internal to capitalism's relationship
with nature. By investigating how gaucho vernacular capitalism engages
the vernaculars of dam developers and conservationists, Carlota thus
aims to expand anthropological understandings of alterity.
From
Carlota's research proposal:
HidroAysén,
with tacit backing from the government, argues that Chile's current
energy woes make this project indispensable to the future of the
nation, while promising gauchos work and infrastructure to make
up for their historical marginalization. Anti-dam conservationists
counter that the dam project will irrevocably alter Aysén's
extraordinarily pristine nature, destroying the quality of life
that is a gaucho's true wealth. Both positions in the dam controversy
may bode ill for gauchos, whose livelihoods are equally incompatible
with HidroAysén's "progress" and the conservationists'
"wilderness."
Gauchos
have no indigenous ties to Aysén: their ancestors arrived
in the early 20th century from further north in Chile, fleeing dispossession
in search of land of their own to enclose and make productive. In
the context of the dam conflict, the gaucho defense of the private
property rights bequeathed by these pioneers makes their case an
ethnographic challenge to current anthropological models of environmental
struggle in the global South. These tend to privilege "difference,"
treated as cultural or even ontological exteriority to capitalism,
as the key to understanding struggles over capitalist "nature."
This
research will provide material for a single-authored book as well
as several conference papers and journal articles. Its interest outside
the academic community will be greatest for people in Aysén,
says Carlota: "Gauchos are very proud to have their history as
pioneers recognized: after consultation with community leaders in
Cochrane, I agreed to produce a popular history of local properties
to be used in developing a museum of Cochrane's history and gaucho
life in southern Aysén."
Gender & Reparations in Guatemala:
Year 2
IDRC renews support
for second year of Alison Crosby's project
IDRC has approved a grant to support the second year
of Prof. Alison Crosby's CERLAC-based research project "Understanding
women’s struggles for justice, healing and redress: A study of gender
and reparation in postwar Guatemala".
The project is examining forms of reparation for women
survivors of human rights violations during the 36-year long armed
conflict in Guatemala, as a potential contribution to their broader
struggles as political actors for justice, healing and redress.
CERLAC Fellow Carlos Larrea helps
"keep oil in the soil" in Ecuadorean Amazon
CERLAC Fellow
Update
By Liisa L. North
CERLAC Fellow Carlos
Larrea is now the chief technical advisor for the Ecuadorean government
team that is negotiating international compensation for “keeping oil
in the soil” in the Yasuni-ITT national reserve in the Amazon rain
forest of Ecuador.
His interest in the developmental benefits and costs
of petroleum exports dates back to his PhD thesis in the Social and
Political Thought Program (SPT), completed under the supervision of
CERLAC Fellow Louis
Lefeber (Economics) in 1992. The title of that work was “The
Mirage of Development: Oil, employment, and poverty in Ecuador, 1972-1990.”
It tried to explain why the country’s petroleum export boom had done
little to lay the bases for sustainable development and poverty reduction.
The Ecuadorian government’s proposal to keep oil in the soil, according
to Carlos, represents a “paradigm shift for dealing with climate change,
the conservation of biodiversity in tropical zones, and international
equity” (see www.yasuni-itt.gov.ec).
The rich countries and institutions of the world are being asked to
compensate one of the poorest countries of South America for its willingness
to preserve an area whose biodiversity is unmatched in the world:
the Yasuni-ITT area contains more species per square mile than all
of North America (Canada and the USA) taken together. Instead of buying
carbon credits, rich countries can support the Yasuni-ITT project
for keeping greenhouse gases from being produced in the first place.
The idea of keeping oil in the soil came from the work of Acción
Ecológica, an environmental NGO that has hosted several
CERLAC associated graduate students in the past, Malcolm Rogge among
them. He is director of the award winning documentary “Under
Rich Earth” which chronicles a conflict between rural farming
communities and a Canadian mining company in the Intag valley to the
north of Ecuador’s capital city.
Acción Ecológica’s proposal for preserving
Yasuni-ITT from petroleum extraction was accepted by President Rafael
Correa who, in turn, presented it to the United Nations in September
2007. Since then, an agreement has been signed with the United Nations
and Carlos, to his own surprise, has become a globe trotting advocate
and negotiator for the project, visiting just about every European
country, many of them on several occasions. The proposal has received
the unanimous support of all parties in the German Parliament, and
the Ecuadorian team has been favorably received in Belgium, Denmark,
France, England, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey, as well as by
the European Union and OPEC. The names of supportive civil society
organizations, and even Hollywood stars, are too many to list.
When not preparing documents for negotiations and traveling as a member
of the Ecuadorean negotiating team, Carlos teaches courses on theories
of development and on climate change at a graduate school set up by
the Andean Group of Nations, the Universidad
Andina Simón Bolívar, which has campuses in both
Bolivia and Ecuador. He has also written numerous books and published
dozens of refereed articles that arise for the most part from a 15-year
long dedication to work on developing social information systems for
Ecuador that can be used by governments as well as academics. His
latest books include Pueblos
indigenas, desarrollo humano y discriminación en el Ecuador
and Hacia
una Historia Ecológica del Ecuador.
In addition to his academic research, Carlos has written numerous
reports for public policy formulation for the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP), World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, Interamerican
Development Bank (IDB), and Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO),
among many other international organizations. He also spent some time
at Harvard University as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and at the
University of Toronto as a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for International
Studies.
Carlos, of course, continues to participate in CERLAC-organized
events. Most recently, he presented a paper at the conference
on extractive industry organized by CERLAC and the Extractive
Industries Research Group (EIRG) in March 2009. He also continues
to collaborate with the Latin American Faculty of Social Science (FLACSO-Ecuador),
a principal CERLAC partner in various past projects and ongoing faculty
and student exchanges.
CERLAC Grad Pablo Andrade directs
MA program in Ecuador
CERLAC Grad Update
By Liisa L. North
While completing research on, and the writing of, his
PhD dissertation in Social and Political Thought (SPT, 2007), Pablo
Andrade started to work at the Universidad
Andina Simón Bolívar (UASB) in Quito, Ecuador, where
he has been the director of its
Latin American Masters Program since 2002. It is a program that
offers MA degrees in three areas – International Relations, Politics
and Culture, and Agrarian Studies. It also provides dormitory and
other facilities for students from abroad, not just from the Andean
region countries that form part of the Community of Andean Nations
(CAN) that set up this public university in 1994.
Pablo wants Canadian students to know that their applications
will be welcomed in the University’s MA program. And he wants students
and professors to know that UASB has a publishing
arm that has been very active, with many titles in the social
sciences.
Pablo has dedicated considerable energy to building international
support and an international profile for the program that he directs.
The University of Bergen, Norway, has been particularly generous in
providing funding for research on poverty and that University’s Geography
Department has been involved in providing academic support for a diploma
program a on Cambio Climático (Clilmate Change) that was set
up at the UASB in 2008. This is the first program of its kind in the
Andean region if not in the hemisphere, and Pablo’s colleague and
Fellow York PhD Carlos
Larrea teaches in it.
Pablo has also maintained his Canadian and CERLAC linkages. He has
worked on ensuring cooperation between the UASB and Trent University’s
undergraduate “Year
Abroad in Ecuador Program” to which he has contributed on a regular
basis. Meanwhile, he has encouraged his former CERLAC/York student
colleagues – Tom Legler (now at the Universidad Metropolitana in Mexico
City) and John Cameron (now chair of International Development Studies
at Dalhousie in Halifax) -- to provide lectures in USASB programs.
Pablo also hosted former CERLAC Director Viviana Patroni at the Andina
while CERLAC Fellow Liisa North taught a course in the Agrarian Studies
specialization of the Latin American Studies Program during February-March
2010.
In addition to his administrative duties, Pablo maintains an active
teaching schedule and research program. His courses include an Introduction
to International Political Economy, Politics and Society in Latin
America, and Philosophy and Political Analysis. His La
reinvención del Estado: La era neolibreal y el proyecto republicano
(1992-2006) was published in 2009. A year earlier, he
published Democracia
y cambio político en el Ecuador: Liberalismo, política
de la cultura y reforma institucional. Both works,
as well as his many articles and chapters in books, benefited from
research time made available to Pablo as Senior Associate Member of
St. Anthony’s College at Oxford University (in 2008) and as a Fulbright
Visiting Scholar at the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History
at the University of California in Los Angeles (2005-2006). As well,
he had an opportunity to spend some tine at the University of Bergen
in Norway in the spring of 2007 where he delivered a lecture on “Neoliberalism:
the Public Philosophy of Inequality”.
2010 Mundo Canuck essay
prize-winners selected - & celebrated on TLN
On 18 May 2010, the inaugural winners of the "Mundo
Canuck" essay prize were publicly celebrated in a ceremony
that took place in the York Research Tower. CERLAC Deputy Director
Prof. Andrea Davis and long-time CERLAC Fellow Prof. Marguerita
Feliciano, who was also one of the judges for this year's competition,
presented the two prize-winners with their recognition certificates.
L to R: Marguerita
Feliciano, Iván Wadgymar,
Natassha Feo, Andrea Davis
Also present were Sharon Mejia, production coordinator
with the Telelatino television network, and cameraman
Julian Popa, to film a segment on the prize and this year's
winners for broadcast on the TLN network.
The segment was broadcast on June 1 2010 and can be viewed
here.
Sharon Mejia and Julian Popa of TLN
CERLAC is pleased to announce and congratulate again
the 2010 prize-winners:
1st place:
"Olga
Patricia Jabbaz: Un empeño ejemplar en Canadá"
by Iván A.
Wadgymar
Evaluators' comments:
"... solid, in terms of socio-cultural content
and sustained literary effort".
"The story is original. More original is
the analysis contrasting the story with findings from select
studies. This is done smoothly and creates both an analytic
framework and interest."
"Very clearly written. Persuasive..."
2nd place:
"Pertenezco"
by Natassha Feo
Evaluators' comments:
"A nice very short story. Almost poetic in
parts..."
"Clear, interesting writing. Very authentic
in tone."
About the prize: The Telelatino
Network "Mundo Canuck" Essay Prize is awarded annually
to two York undergraduate students demonstrating exceptional writing
on the experiences of Hispanic people in Canada. The first prize
is worth $800, the second $450. The competition has been established
through a donation by Telelatino (TLN), a Canadian television
channel that broadcasts programs of interest to the Hispanic and
Italian communities.
The winning essays provide critical reflection on
the experiences of Hispanic people in Canada, highlighting their
past, present and future contributions to Canadian society and/or
addressing the challenges they have successfully overcome as members
of a minority group in the Canadian context.
CERLAC invites York students to submit their entries
for the 2011 prizes before 18 February 2011. More
information.
CERLAC Fellows on organizing
committee, heading two panels for LASA 2010
2010 Congress
of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA): "Crisis,
Response, and Recovery"
CERLAC Fellows Eduardo
Canel, Judy
Hellman, Liisa
North and Viviana
Patroni are all serving on the organizing committee for the
2010
Congress of LASA, which is taking place in Toronto, October
6-9, 2010. In addition, CERLAC Fellows have organized two panels
for the Congress, detailed below: “Managed Migration”: A Comparison
of Agricultural Contract Work in Canada, the United States, and
Spain, organized and chaired by Judith Adler Hellman; and
Canada in the Americas: Regulating Canadian Extractive Industries
in the Hemisphere, co-sponsored by CERLAC and CALACS, organized
by members of the Extractive Industries Research Group (EIRG)
and chaired by Eduardo Canel.
Canada in the Americas: Regulating Canadian
Extractive Industries in the Hemisphere
Chair, Eduardo
Canel, Director of CERLAC; Associate Professor, Department
of Social Science
Honourable John McKay (Member of Parliament, Scarborough-Guildwood,
Canada) "Regulating Canadian Extractive Industries Abroad.
Private Member's Bill C-300 on Responsible Canadian Mining."
David
Szablowski (Assistant Professor, Law and Society program,
York University) "Competing visions of human rights in the transnational
regulation of Canadian mining investment in Latin America."
Anna
Zalik (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies,
York University) "Contesting NAFTA's Marine Zones: Regulating the Petroleum
Offshore."
Shin
Imai (Associate Professor, Osgood Law School, York University) "Breaching Indigenous Law: Goldcorp and Hudbay in Guatemala."
“Managed Migration”: A Comparison of Agricultural
Contract Work in Canada, the United States, and Spain
Organizer and Chair: Judith
Adler Hellman, CERLAC Fellow, York University, Toronto
Leigh Binford, City University of New York, College
of Staten Island, “Can Managed Migration really be Managed? : Seasonal Agricultural
Workers Programs in North America"
David Griffith, East Carolina University, "Para
Mis Hijos: Hyperproletarianization, Family, and Managed Migration
between Sinaloa and North Carolina."
Janet McLaughlin, Wilfrid Laurier University,
“Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program: A Model or
Amiss?”
Kerry Preibisch, University of Guelph, “Mismanaging
migration? Changes to Canada’s Agriculture Guestworker Programs
and Impacts for Workplace Regimes”
Alicia Reigada Olaizola, Universidad de Sevilla,
“‘Trabajadoras invitadas’ en los campos
freseros: Políticas de contratación y gestión
de la inmigración en el Sur de España”
Discussant: Judith Adler Hellman, York University, Toronto
LASA
is the largest professional Association in the world for individuals
and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. Its international
Congress is the world's premier forum for expert discussion on
Latin America and the Caribbean, and typically features over 900
sessions, including plenary sessions and informal meetings.
The conference will explore - with insights from
multiple disciplines - the effects of, and responses to, the 2008
US financial crisis in Latin America, as these have varied from
country to country, community to community, even neighborhood
to neighborhood.
CERLAC recruiting volunteers
for LASA 2010
Volunteers are
needed for the 2010 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA).
The theme of the Congress is "Crisis, Response,
and Recovery", and it will be taking place in Toronto October
6-9, 2010.
LASA
is the largest professional Association in the world for individuals
and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. Its international
Congress is the world's premier forum for expert discussion on Latin
America and the Caribbean, and typically features over 900 sessions,
including plenary sessions and informal meetings.
The conference will explore - with insights from multiple
disciplines - the effects of, and responses to, the 2008 US financial
crisis in Latin America, as these have varied from country to country,
community to community, even neighborhood to neighborhood.
The program is ambitious, participants are coming from
across the globe, and we need your help to make it all happen.
We need volunteers who can help us with:
- interpretation (English to Spanish)
- guiding conference participants to venues and through registration
lines
- running errands
- preparation of congress materials
- billeting out-of-town visitors
Volunteers will be expected to work in half-day (6 ½
hour shifts). Please let us know if you can work more than one shift
over the duration of the Congress.
Volunteers will enjoy being part of a world-class international
academic Event. Their names will be listed in our system and they
will receive a program book and a certificate noting their participation
in the Congress as well as their name badge which is required for
access to the congress and a t-shirt noting their volunteer status.
Volunteers also receive full access to all of the Congress' sessions
and events (a $55 value for students) provided at least one shift
is worked and will have the opportunity to meet and interact with
Latin Americanist scholars from around the world. Access to the events
will require the proper name badge to be displayed.
A manual detailing the information for the congress
and volunteer duties will be sent with your schedule. These duties
may require extensive walking or standing and some light lifting.
Please contact: cerlac@yorku.ca
Subject line: Volunteer
And please include in the message in what capacity you would like
to volunteer, contact info.
Thank you - we look forward to hearing from you.
The Organizing Committee
LASA 2010 Congress Organizing Committee
CERLAC seeking Graduate
Assistants for 2010-2011
Every year, the smooth running of CERLAC's programs
depends upon the critical support of various Graduate Assistants
(GAs). It is thanks to their contributions that we are able to
hold as many events and activities as we manage to do each year.
GAs help us to organize conferences, lectures, and seminars; to
maintain our website and the databases of information that it
contains; to ensure the flow of information on our listservs is
continuous and content-rich; to run our publication series, our
Graduate Diploma program, our Documentation Centre, and so on.
We also seek to ensure that the GAs who work with
us acquire new knowledge, skills and experiences. They are exposed
to new ideas and to the research of our Fellows and visitors and
are encouraged to attend and participate in our events as part
of their GA assignments.
We invite graduate students, at the MA and PhD level,
who have been guaranteed GA funding from their Graduate Program,
to consider pursuing their GA-ship with CERLAC during the 2010-2011
academic year.
A list of GA positions at CERLAC for 2010-2011
can be downloaded here.
If you are interested in one of these positions,
please speak to your Graduate Program Director (GDP) about your
interest. If your GDP says you are eligible to apply and supports
your doing so, please send a brief statement of interest and a
CV to cerlac@yorku.ca.
Nominations
sought for Latin American Environmental History book prize named after
late CERLAC Fellow Elinor Melville
The Elinor Melville
Prize for Latin American Environmental History
Nominations sought for prize that memorializes the
late Elinor Melville, former CERLAC Fellow and professor
of History at York University.
Deadline for receipt of nominations: June 30, 2010
$500 is awarded annually for the best book on Latin American
Envirnonmental History published in English, French, Spanish
or Portuguese.
The Melville prize was established in 2007 through a
bequest from Elinor Kerr Melville. It carries a stipend of $500. The
Melville prize is awarded for the best book in English, French, Spanish
or Portuguese on Latin American Environmental History that is published
anywhere during the imprint year previous to the year of the award.
Melville defined environmental history as “the study of the mutual
influences of social and natural processes.” The prize will go to
the book that best fits that definition, while also considering sound
scholarship, grace of style, and importance of the scholarly contribution
as criteria for the award.
Normally not considered for the award are reprints or re-editions
of works published previously, and works not primarily historical
in aim or content. More general works of environmental history with
significant Latin American content may also be considered.
1. To be considered for the Melville Prize, a book
must bear the imprint of the year prior to the year for which the
award is made. Hence, for the 2010 Melville Prize, to be awarded in
January of 2011, the Melville Prize Committee will review and judge
books with imprint year 2009.
2. The CLAH Secretariat will invite publishers to nominate
books for prize consideration. CLAH members, including members of
the selection committee, may also nominate books, and authors who
are not CLAH members may nominate their own books. For a book to be
considered, each of the three committee members must receive a copy,
either from the publisher or from another
source. Books received after June 1 of the award year will not be
considered. The Secretariat should be informed of the committee’s
decision no later than October 15, 2010.
3. Authors are advised to consult their publishers
to be certain their books have been nominated and a copy sent to each
member of the Review Committee.
Conference on Latin American History
Department of History and Program in Latin American Studies
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte, North Carolina 28223-0001
CERLAC co-organizing an IDRC-sponsored
conference in Argentina on “Deepening Democracy”
CERLAC and the Transformative Learning Centre (TLC
- OISE, University of Toronto) have been awarded a grant from the
International Development Research Centre (IDRC), to support an international
conference in Rosario, Argentina, from May 13 to 16, 2010. The conference
is organized by the Faculty of Political Science and International
Relations at the Universidad Nacional
de Rosario, in collaboration with TLC and CERLAC.
The four-day conference - “Deepening
Democracy as a Way of Life: Challenges for Participatory Democracy
and Citizenship Learning in the 21sth Century” – has been conceived
of as a space to combine academic reflection and debate with an exchange
of experiences in participatory democracy and citizenship education.
The conference will be organized around thematic tracks on deepening
democracy in: Civil Society; State Sponsored Spaces (municipal, Provincial,
National); Workplace; Education (Primary/Secondary, Post-secondary,
Informal); Mass Media; and Transnational Communities.
In response to the Call for Papers, the organizers
have received over 400 proposals from individuals around the world.
The keynote speakers and special guests in special panels include:
Erik Olin Wright (USA), Yves Cabannes (France), Juan Carlos Tedesco
(Argentina), Daniel Schugurensky (Canadá), Ximena Soruco Sologuren
(Ecuador), Chiqui González (Argentina), Tor Iorapuu (Nigeria),
Manjula Bharathy (India), Gabriela Ippolito-O'Donnell (Argentina),
Alicia Cabezudo (Argentina), Danilo Streck (Brazil), Eduardo Canel
(Canada).
As CALACS celebrates its 40th anniversary,
it is pursuing a plan for renewal and growth that involves
the temporary re-location of its operations to CERLAC and
a new partnership with the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC). The IDRC recently awarded a grant to CALACS
to support this process.
CALACS will benefit from the knowledge, capacities and
networks of CERLAC as the two organizations collaborate to:
• expand and diversify the membership of CALACS;
• sponsor opportunities for the interchange of research findings;
• develop position papers on the changing relationship of area studies
to development studies, and of Latin American and Caribbean development
to trends in other area studies fields;
• hold a conference, “Mapping the New Area Studies”, in Montreal;
• enhance knowledge about the mandate and actions of IDRC among Canadian
and international researchers of Latin America and the Caribbean;
• enhance opportunities for graduate student training;
• help visiting scholars and actors from Latin America and the Caribbean
to plug into a larger network of Canadian research venues and audiences;
and
• consolidate the CALACS archive in the archives of York University.
CALACS was founded in 1969 to promote academic
excellence in all fields of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
in Canada, while facilitating contact and exchange of information
among those engaged in related fields of Latin American and
Caribbean teaching and research in Canada and abroad. The association
turned 40 in 2009, and in June 2010 will celebrate its 40th
anniversary congress in Montreal. A centrepiece of CALACS’ activities
is the publication of a journal, the Canadian
Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CJLACS),
founded in 1977.
CERLAC has a long and close history with CALACS,
with which it shares - uniquely among Canadian research centres
- a focus on both Latin America and the Caribbean.
Among past instances of collaboration, they co-organized two
conferences, in 1990 and 1996. In addition, between 2001 and
2004, the journal of CALACS (CJLACS)
was housed at CERLAC, under the editorship of CERLAC Fellow
Judy Hellman.
CERLAC
receives grant for global extractive industries workshop
CERLAC is happy to announce its having been awarded a grant from SSHRC’s
International Opportunities Fund to organize a workshop with leading
international researchers in the field of extractive industries.
The workshop proposal, submitted in September 2009,
was approved by SSHRC in late 2009 but no funds were then available
to support it. In late March 2010, SSHRC followed up with the good
news that sufficient funds had since been found.
The primary objectives of the proposed international
workshop are to: (1) map out the currently partial and fragmented
body of knowledge on Extractive Industry/EI (mining and petroleum)
in order to formulate pertinent research questions to encourage a
new generation of international collaborative studies; (2) initiate
a discussion to set up an International Extractive Industry Research
Network that links individual researchers and organized research units
in Canada and abroad that share a commitment to study EI from a diversity
of perspectives, and (3) lay the groundwork for a large-scale collaborative
research initiative to advance knowledge in relation to critical questions
identified in EI studies.
These objectives emerge from suggestions made by scholars
who participated in a highly successful international Conference,
“Rethinking Extractive
Industry: Regulation, Dispossession, and Emerging Claims,” organized
in March 2009 by York University’s Centre for Research on Latin America
and the Caribbean (CERLAC) and the Extractive Industries Research
Group (EIRG). They repeatedly pointed out that the wealth of knowledge
produced on EI seemed fragmented and dispersed, and that the Conference
constituted a first step to identify gaps and to develop common research
agendas, as well as much needed international collaborative research
projects. Therefore, the workshop aims to generate a series of research
questions for future comparative studies of EI and to explore ways
to facilitate international collaborative research and communication
among EI scholars in universities in Canada and abroad.
The team members for the proposed research activity
are: applicant David Szablowski (Law & Society program, York University);
co-applicants Uwafiokun Idemudia (Division of Social Science, York
University) and Anna Zalik (Faculty of Environmental Studies, York
University); and collaborators Anthony Bebbington (School of Environment
and Development, University of Manchester) and Bonnie Campbell (Groupe
de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique,
University of Quebec in Montreal).
Invitees to the workshop include: Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
(Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National
University); Joan Martínez Alier (Institute of Environmental
Science and Technology, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain);
Ben Naanen (University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria); Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh
(Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University, Australia); Cynthia
Sanborn (Universidad del Pacífico, Peru); and Myrna Santiago
(St. Mary's College of California).
CERLAC hopes to organize the workshop for late Summer
or Fall 2010.
CERLAC / EIRG-edited CJDS issue
on Extractive Industries available now
A special double-issue
of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies (CJDS), stemming
from the CERLAC-organized March 2009 conference “Re-thinking
Extractive Industries”, is now availble.
It was guest edited by a team of colleagues in
CERLAC and the CERLAC-hosted Extractive Industries Research
Group (EIRG) at York University.
For more information on the conference (including
access to various other papers presented, and to streaming video
of some of the panel sessions), click
here.
CERLAC-CEBEM project update:
On-line distance education course on Migration & Development launched
CERLAC is pleased to announce the launch
of a new on-line distance education course on Migration and Development,
designed by CERLAC Fellow Alan
Simmons and researcher Pedro Marcelino.
“Best practices” in Projects on Migration,
Remittances and Development
CERLAC and the Centro Boliviano de Estudios Multidisciplinarios
(CEBEM) have just announced the first installment of an online
course on Migration, Remittances and Development. It is aimed
at professionals and anyone interested in knowing, deepening,
analyzing and exchanging criteria about the role of migration
and remittances in developmental processes.
For more than a decade the relationships between migration, remittances,
and development have been the object of attention of researchers,
institutions and governments, gradually earning its place in local
and regional planning and becoming a crucial element in the search
for transformative practices to possibly affect socio-economic
structures in Latin American and Caribbean countries, particularly
in the rural sector.
Contents
Week 1. Introduction
Week 2. Remittance Flows
Week 3. Impacts of Remittances
Week 4. Remittances and bancarización (‘banking’ the poor)
Week 5. Case Study Variations
Week 6. Beyond Remittances
Teaching
Alan Simmons: Researcher of processes of migration
and development. Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Cornell
University. He is currently a professor emeritus at York University
and a CERLAC fellow.
Pedro F. Marcelino: Researcher of migratory dynamics
in West Africa, diasporas, and processes of inclusion and exclusion.
He is currently a research associate at CERLAC.
Length
7 weeks, including an introductory week for familiarization
with the online campus.
Language
Spanish. Some alternative course materials in English
and Portuguese.
A limited number of scholarships are available.
See CEBEM's formal announcement
about the course, with detailed information (in Spanish only), here.
The research process:Although remittances have been on the research and governance
agendas for well over a decade, there are still substantial gaps in
knowledge. Much of the work currently being done follows the policies
and ideologies of the World Bank, IMF, IFAD and, in Latin America
and the Caribbean, IADB. At the academic level, significant research
has been published on limited case studies (El Salvador, Mexico),
and on a few dimensions of the phenomenon, notably at the macro-economic
level.
Remittances are, however, intrinsically
fluid, by definition influenced by external factors (such as unemployment
rates and currency fluctuations in host countries), and interconnect
transnational practices with inherently local practices. It is at
the ground level that the largest gaps in knowledge can be found.
Remittances received in migrants’ countries of origin are often not
channeled to achieve the best possible outcomes and maximize the effects
on local economies.
During the research requested by CEBEM,
Alan Simmons and Pedro Marcelino identified the most relevant and
up-to-date work done on the subject across Latin America and the world.
Although results were scarce at first, within a couple of months a
list of over two hundred titles had been compiled, revealing considerable
gaps in knowledge on processes “beyond remittances,” as they are known
in the field.
Bearing in mind the amount of compiled material and the contacts established
during the research process, it is possible that this course will
be followed by a second installment and a second, advanced level course.
After Haiti suffered an “apocalyptic”
earthquake on January 12th, CERLAC participated in an effort to mobilize
the York community to contribute to emergency relief efforts in Haiti.
These efforts led
to the formation of a York-Haiti Solidarity Committee, the setting-up
of a York-Haiti Disaster Appeal Fund, the circulation of an appeal
for support, and two fundraising auctions of Haitian art.
The Committee is pleased to announce that it has now made a donation
to IBBY Haiti in the amount of $4075.00 CAD. These funds came from
a generous donation by the York University Faculty Association, several
generous donations by anonymous individuals, and from the funds raised
by two auctions of Haitian art at the March
2010 lectures on Haiti by Prof. Patrick Bellegarde-Smith. Many
thanks to everyone who contributed to the fund and to the fundraising
efforts.
The International
Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) is a non-profit organization
which represents an international network of people from all over
the world who are committed to bringing books and children together.
Information about IBBY Haiti's literacy project with children displaced
by the January 12 earthquake can be found here.
CERLAC also supported a student-led fundraising
initiative that raised $2500 (in a Bingo event on January 27) for
the work of the International Red Cross in Haiti.
CERLAC contributes to White Paper
response
A number of York’s organized research units (ORUs),
with CERLAC among them, have submitted a response to the chapter on
research of the draft Provostial
White Paper (produced by the Office of the Vice-President Academic
& Provost).
The Provostial White Paper (Canada's Engaged University:
Strategic Directions for York University 2010-2020) is intended
to reflect York University’s strategic priorities for the next decade.
A response to chapter 3 (research) of the White Paper,
signed by 19 ORU directors, was submitted on 27 March to the Provost.
The response is the result of a collegial discussion that took place
over several weeks and it offers a consensual response from the majority
of ORU directors. Download
the response here.
Celebrating Alan Simmons' retirement…
and on-going involvement
On 28 January 2010, a crowd assembled in the common
space of the 8th floor of the York Research Tower to celebrate Alan
Simmons, in recognition of his formal retirement almost two years
before. The delay in holding such a celebration is no doubt attributable,
to some degree, to the fact that many of Alan’s colleagues have not
been closely affected by his retirement because – and this is especially
true in terms of CERLAC’s experience - his presence and contributions
have not noticeably diminished.
Nonetheless, the occasion offered opportunity for many
of the people Alan has touched, professionally and personally, to
pay heartfelt tribute to him as a teacher, mentor, colleague and friend.
The following tribute was written by CERLAC Graduate Assistant Larissa
Rozdzilski (with photos by Jacqueline Siebert):
[Alan was recently in Bogota, Colombia,
exploring possible opportunities for collaboration with Colombian
and Latin American researchers in the area of international migration,
remittances and development. His latest book - Immigration
and Canada: Global and Transnational Perspectives
– was just published (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, January
2010). Alan is presently working with graduate student Pedro Ferreira
Marcelino to design an on-line distance education
course on Migration and Development for the Centro Boliviano
para Estudios Multidisciplinarios (CEBEM) in Bolivia, as part of
a CERLAC-CEBEM project funded by the International Development Research
Centre.]
The return of LACYORK News
LACYORK News – the weekly compilation of news and analysis
on Latin American and Caribbean regional affairs, circulated via CERLAC’s
“LACYORK” listserv - is back by popular demand.
After a two-year absence, this electronic resource has
been resurrected, bringing a wealth of topical information to LACYORK
subscribers.
To subscribe to LACYORK, send your full name and email
with a request for subscription to LACYORK to: cerlac3@yorku.ca
New Latin American Politics
Study Group formed
A new thematic study group on contemporary Latin American
politics has been created at York University, with CERLAC’s support.
The stated aim of its organizers is to create an interdisciplinary
space in which to share research and political concerns related to:
• neoliberal hegemony in the region,
• the turn to the left,
• the relationships between left and center-left governments and social
movements,
• key public policy areas, and
• the recent re-emergence of the right
among other topics.
The first meeting of the group was held March 31 2010.
CERLAC recently helped to create a Guatemala Research
Group for York graduate students working on Guatemala, to facilitate
a sense of community among such scholars, and to encourage debate,
exchange and a pooling of resources on topics of shared interest,
including conducting fieldwork in Guatemala.
Professor Alison Crosby has agreed to act as a faculty
resource person for this group, and other faculty members are also
be invited to participate, either on a regular or periodical basis.
If you are interested in joining this group-in-formation,
please send to cerlac@yorku.ca
a request to be subscribed to the Guatemala Group listserv; please
include in that email your name, affiliation and a brief description
of your research interests as these relate to Guatemala. We plan to
create a webpage for the Guatemala Group with brief profiles of each
member and his/her research.
Winners announced: 2009 Michael
Baptista Essay Prize
CERLAC is pleased to announce the winners of the 2009
Michael Baptista Essay Prize for outstanding scholarly papers on topics
of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
The essays were nominated by York faculty members and
evaluated by a two committees of CERLAC Fellows (a separate committee
for each of the two prizes).
Baptista esaay prizewinners Emmanuelle
Fick (undergraduate 2009), Laurence Robitaille (graduate 2009) and
Nicholas Balaisis (graduate 2008) flanking Sharon Baptista
Emmanuelle Fick’s outstanding paper provides a “multilayered
analysis [demonstrating] a keen understanding of the relationship
between performance and memory of the body, as well as of the relationship
between performance and social memory,” in its discussion of Césaire’s
play - one of the great, overlooked historical plays of the Haitian
Revolution.
In the words of one evaluator, “[Emmanuelle] did not
simplistically tack theory onto the play, but rather infused a deeper
meaning into the play that gave this reader the sense that she understood
the play from its author's perspective--a very difficult task, indeed.
The argument was clear and carefully constructed, original, and surprisingly
easy to grasp given the level of complexity of the theory in its original
format. A particular strength was the essay's link between culture/arts
and power in all of its colonial/post-colonial, racial, and gendered
guises.”
Laurence Robitaille’s essay, in turn, “provides an excellent
and in-depth overview of the scholarly work on the body as a text…
Complementing such frameworks with an ethnographic and situated frame
of reference, Laurence then performs her own empirically based analysis
of Capoeira, the Brazilian dance/martial arts.”
“This paper… provides a quite virtuosic romp through
some of the main texts of cultural studies at large,” noted one evaluator.
Another found her paper “highly academically sophisticated” and further
observed: “It is supported by a strong, compelling argument that makes
a significant contribution to the fields of Brazilian Studies, Dance
Studies, and Cultural Studies. To my knowledge, no one else has used
cultural theories in these ways to examine capoeira or any other movement
practice. Her writing is clear, elegant, professional and complex.”
All of the nominated papers represent high-calibre scholarly
work at their authors’ respective levels of study, and merit recognition
as worthy of candidacy for this prize. The other undergraduate papers
nominated for the 2009 prize were: “The Maroon Wars” by Rob Connell;
“La novela de la crueldad: una aproximación a Máscaras
de Leonardo Padura desde El teatro y su doble de Antonin Artaud” by
Mélissa Gélinas; and “Make it Legal: the attempt to
legitimize the push for social change through constitutional reform
in Bolivia” by Sharon Ilavsky.
The other graduate-level nominee was: “From Latin America
to Toronto: Cultural Factors that Transform Performing Artists and
Their Art” by Mayahuel Tecozautla.
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize was established by
the friends of Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This
$500 Prize is awarded annually to both a graduate and an undergraduate
student at York University in recognition of an outstanding scholarly
essay of relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies,
from the humanities, social science, business or legal perspective.
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize and Lecture are named
in honour of Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central
to his spirit and success: the importance of his Guyanese / Caribbean
roots, his dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal
Bank of Canada, and his continued and unqualified drive and love of
learning.
If you are a York faculty member and wish to nominate
a student’s essay for this prize, please contact CERLAC: cerlac@yorku.ca
Congratulations to all this year's nominees, and especially
to the prize winners!
CERLAC regrets the passing of
Fellow Howard Daugherty; on-line tributes
We at CERLAC were very saddened by the unexpected
and sudden passing of our colleague Prof. Howard Daugherty on
12 February 2010.
Howard was a professor of environmental studies
and a researcher in neo-tropical ecosystems. He was also the
Principal Investigator of the Las Nubes Research and Conservation
Project in Costa Rica, and was the much-respected and appreciated
supervisor of many graduate students doing field research on
that project. Howard was the recipient of the 2009 Faculty Member
Award for Outstanding Contribution to Internationalization.
Winners announced: 2008 Michael Baptista
Essay Prize
CERLAC is pleased to announce the winners of the 2008 Michael Baptista
Essay Prize for outstanding scholarly papers on topics of relevance
to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
The essays were nominated by York faculty members and evaluated by
a committee of CERLAC Fellows.
Laura Landertinger’s outstanding paper “examines the establishment
of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil in 1984, analyzes
its growth, development and influence and assesses whether or not
it has been successful in its bid to improve the lives of its supporters.”
One reviewer described Laura’s work as “a very good piece, well researched,
argued and presented and certainly deserving of consideration for
the Baptista Prize.”
Nicholas Balaisis’ essay, affirmed one evaluator, is “a superbly argued
and original analysis” that “makes a significant contribution to our
understanding of the two-way links between a particular cultural form
(film) and the political, cultural and social economic transformation
of the case studied (Cuba)”, using “an insightful and qualified… framework
(Habermas re public spaces)”. While the adjudicators noted that
all the graduate-level nominated papers “add to knowledge and all
have other strengths, the Balaisis paper is most original, theoretically
sophisticated and coherently argued.”
All of the nominated papers represent high-calibre scholarly work
at their authors’ respective levels of study, and merit recognition
as worthy of candidacy for this prize. The other undergraduate papers
nominated for the 2008 prize were: “Subjects or Citizens: Caribbean
Communities in Britain” by Heather Williams; “An Afternoon with Mrs.
Winter: The Life Story of a Saint Lucian Woman” by Richard Lanns-Allain;
and “East Indian in the West Indies” by Alyssa Sewlal.
The other graduate-level nominees were: “Contemplating Environmental
History and Socio-Ecological Relationships within the Conservation
Contact Zone in North Rupununi, Guyana” by Tanya Chung Tiam Fook;
“Indigenous Property Rights and Privatization: State Responsibility
under the American Convention in the Negritos Case” by Charis Kamphuis;
“Changing Social Relations of Production in Urabá: Social Forces and
the Colombian Form of State” by Olivier Plamondon; and “Yuh Nah Sih
Mih Fuh True/You Don’t See Who I Really Am: The Hybrid Politics
Of Guyanese Racial Identity” by Rosanne Purnwasie.
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize was established by the friends of
Michael Baptista and the Royal Bank of Canada. This $500 Prize is
awarded annually to both a graduate and an undergraduate student at
York University in recognition of an outstanding scholarly essay of
relevance to the area of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, from
the humanities, social science, business or legal perspective.
The Michael Baptista Essay Prize and Lecture are named in honour of
Michael Baptista in recognition of the areas central to his spirit
and success: the importance of his Guyanese / Caribbean roots, his
dedication to and outstanding achievement at the Royal Bank of Canada,
and his continued and unqualified drive and love of learning.
If you are a York faculty member and wish to nominate a student’s
essay for this prize, please contact CERLAC: cerlac@yorku.ca
Congratulations to this year's winners!
Toronto Star Interviews Laurentino Gomes,
Brazilian author & recent CERLAC guest speaker
The defining
year for Brazil
Lesley
Ciarula Taylor IMMIGRATION
REPORTER
March 18, 2009.
Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto
and Consul-General Americo Dyott Fontenelle will be special guests at
the York University seminar today by bestselling author Laurentino Gomes
on his book 1808: How a mad queen, a fearful prince and a corrupt
court deceived Portugal and Brazil forever. Gomes, whose book has
won the Brazilian equivalent of the Giller Prize, will speak from 12:30
to 2:30 p.m. in Room 280 York Lanes.
Q: How did you get the idea for 1808?
A: 1808 was born in the newsroom
of Veja, the leading weekly news magazine in Brazil, where I
worked for more than 15 years as a reporter and editor. In 1997, I was
the executive editor of the magazine and my director asked me to prepare
a series of specials on Brazilian history. After some months of working,
the plan was cancelled, but I decided to go ahead by myself. I published
the book in 2007, on the eve of the royal family's arrival for 200th anniversary
celebrations.
Q: Why do you think it has been so popular in Brazil
and Portugal?
A: For me, this stands as a powerful indication
that people in Brazil, as well in Portugal, are looking into the past
in search for some explanations to the present. This is very good news.
Our virtues as well as our problems have deep roots in the past.
I would risk saying that the year 1808 worked as our national
DNA. Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese in 1500, but was invented,
or created, as a country only in 1808 with the Portuguese royal family's
arrival in Rio de Janeiro. This was our nation-building event, much as
1867 was for Canada.
Q: What do those 13 years you write about, when
Brazil became a country very rapidly, mean to you as a piece of history?
A: With the Portuguese Royal Court's arrival,
in 1808, Brazil paved the way for its independence ... In little more
than one decade, Brazil was decisively transformed, from an isolated,
ignorant and forbidden colony to a country ready for its autonomy. This
is also an event without parallel in human history. For the first time,
a European monarch crossed an ocean in order to live and rule on the other
side of the world.
Q: What do you think might have happened if the
royal family hadn't come to Brazil?
A: Without the arrival of the Portuguese
court, the social and regional conflicts would have gone deeper, to such
point that the separation between the provinces would be almost inevitable.
Just Visiting profiles people invited to appear at events
in the GTA.
CERLAC Fellow Judith Rudakoff's New
Play Beautiful Little Lies
Theatre
prof's new play is a Cuban cocktail with a twistfrom Y-File - 11 March 2009
Torontonians yearning to be
transported to warmer climes can enjoy the experience vicariously this
Sunday through a public workshop performance of York theatre Professor
Judith Rudakoff’s current play-in-progress, Beautiful Little Lies.
Set in a land of sand and sun, the
play is a far cry from the frost and wind chill of Toronto in March.
The staged reading will be presented by Theatre
Archipelago, a company dedicated to theatre from and about
the Caribbean, and directed by York alumna Rhoma Spencer (MFA '01).
Left: Judith Rudakoff
Rudakoff describes
her play as "a Cuban cocktail with a twist". The story unfolds
in a small city in Cuba, far from the bustle of Havana, in February of
1998. Originally titled Rum and Cola, the play’s new name derives
from the famed “Cuba libre” (free Cuba) cocktail, which local bartenders
call “mentirita” (little lie) when no one is listening.
The plot follows the adventures
of Juancy, a Cuban transvestite performer; Suzanne, a Canadian tourist
whose mother has just died; Moffi, a little white Cuban dog with attitude;
Bob, a closeted male homosexual tourist; and Maria, a Cuban mother with
a passion for all life has to offer. And like Cuba, the world of Beautiful
Little Lies is also populated by the ever-present Orishas, the iconic
and earthy spirit guides of the Afro-Cuban belief system.
Rudakoff has been working on
Beautiful Little Lies on and off for about a decade. “I
was in Cuba in 1998 right after the Pope’s historic visit,” she said.
“There was a huge expectation of change that never really materialized.
The anticipation and the hope of the people I was in contact with, many
of whom were artists of different generations, inspired me to start working
on a play about how you can’t begin to seek what you want until you know
what you are looking for, and about discovering what ‘home’ means. All
of the characters in the play are on a journey, exploring what personal
and cultural identity and freedom means to them.”
Right:
An image of Cuban nationals photographed by the playwright during
her last trip to the island nation
A playwright, dramaturge, critic
and author, Rudakoff is a research fellow at CERLAC, York University’s
Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean. She has
a long-standing interest in Cuba, its history and its artists, with whom
she has forged extensive professional and personal connections over the
years. Her play Not Having was produced in Spanish translation
as Sin Tener by Cuba's Teatro Escambray at their residential
theatre colony in La Macagua. It was the first Canadian play to be professionally
produced by a Cuban company, and Rudakoff was the first foreigner in the
company’s long and distinguished history to be named an honorary member.
Another work-in-progress is The Grove, an adaptation of Anton
Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, set in rural Cuba.
An early draft of Rum and
Cola/Beautiful Little Lies was given a reading at York and
a staged public showcase in 1998 by Montreal’s Teesri Duniya Theatre,
directed by Eda Holmes. It was also read in a Spanish translation by York
theatre alumnus Pablo Felices-Luna (MFA ’98) at Teatro Escambray with
three generations of Cuban actors.
The 10-year development of the
work was necessary, Rudakoff asserts. “I firmly believe you can’t rush
these things. On a trip to Cuba in February 2008, I was inspired to shift
the focus of the play. It was another extraordinary time to be in Cuba:
Fidel Castro resigned while I was there. I returned to Canada on the night
of a rare full moon eclipse: doors were closing and other doors were opening
and Ellegua, the Orisha who is affiliated with thresholds, among other
things, gave me a great big creative shove.”
Rudakoff and Spencer, a Trinidadian
theatre artist, met at York eight years ago, when Spencer was pursuing
a graduate degree in theatre directing. Spencer’s thesis project was Theatre
@ York’s production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s landmark drama, Blood
Wedding, which she transposed to Trinidad.
Right:
The “Cuba libre” (free Cuba) cocktail, which local bartenders call “mentirita”
(little lie)
An actor, director, playwright,
comedienne and broadcast journalist, Spencer was voted one of Toronto’s
top 10 theatre artists by NOW Magazine in 2005. She served as
resident director of the AfriCan Theatre Ensemble before founding Theatre
Archipelago in 2004. Productions she has directed for Archipelago include
the critically acclaimed Twilight Café by Tony Hall at Toronto’s
Theatre Centre. Her performance credits include Mad Miss by Olive
Senior and the Edmonton and Toronto tour of the international hit play,
Jean and Dinah.
Spencer has been involved with
Beautiful Little Lies for some time. Last month, she directed
a public workshop of the play with local actors at the University of the
West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, as part of a three-month
residency with Arts in Action, a theatre-in-education outreach unit of
the school's Centre for Creative & Festival Arts. Rudakoff was
invited to attend the event.
“It was a creatively fruitful
experience,” said Rudakoff. “The people of Trinidad and Cuba deeply respect
the Orishas of the Yoruban pantheon, but of course the diasporic paths
of the spirits and the influences of different oppressive colonial beliefs
means differences abound. What was particularly gratifying is way the
Trini audiences and actors engaged with the Cuban characters and Orishas.
I got a new perspective on the play, and spent the five-hour flight home
rewriting!”
Spencer’s company, Theatre Archipelago,
is workshopping Rudakoff’s play with an eye to mounting a fully staged
production in a future season. Beautiful Little Lies will be
read by professional actors at the Papermill Theatre, located at
the Todmorden Mills heritage site in Toronto, on March 15 at 4pm. Admission
is free.
CERLAC Fellow Margarita Feliciano Named
one of Canada's Top 10 Hispanic Canadians
Glendon
professor named one of 10 top Hispanic Canadians
Y-File - 24 November
2008
Margarita Feliciano, a York
professor emerita in Glendon’s Hispanic Studies Department, was named
one of 10 Hispanic Canadians who really made a difference, at the second
annual 10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians awards celebration Nov.
18 at the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Feliciano is a poet, critic
and literary translator of Italian-Argentinian origin living in Canada where
she has supported the Hispanic community since 1969. Her poetry has
appeared in numerous publications throughout Europe and North America
and are the subject of a doctoral thesis soon to be published by McGill
University. She is director of Celebración Cultural del Idioma Español
(CCIE), an organization which has promoted Spanish language, cinema,
arts and culture in Canada since 1992.
“Over the past 40 years, the
Spanish-speaking community in Canada has progressively become an important
presence in the socio-cultural makeup of this country,” said Feliciano.
“This, of course, did not happen on its own. It is the result of the effort
of many individuals, who have been contributing to the community over
the years in many and meaningful ways. I feel deeply honoured to be counted
in this group.”
In 2005, Feliciano founded Antares,
Canada's first publishing house dedicated to the publication of literary
works in Spanish and located at the Glendon campus. To date, she has translated
seven books (six on poetry and one on the Hindu religion). Her research
focuses on myths, poetry and translation.
Left:
Margarita Feliciano giving her thank you speech at the awards ceremony
Close to 600 people attended
the festive award ceremony, hosted by Scotiabank and the Toronto Stock
Exchange and supported by many major organizations, including York
University.
Journalists and executives from
TheGlobe & Mail, Toronto Star,
Canadian Business, CBC, FOCAL, Canadian Hispanic Congress, Hispanic
Press Association of Canada and five winners from last year's program
selected 20 finalists from a pool of 37 nominees. The 10 winners were
chosen by the attendees at the awards ceremony, with two awards reserved
for entrepreneurs and the other eight for other role models.
Nominations for this year’s
10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians were submitted from across the
country with winners representing a highly educated, fast-growing demographic.
Canada's 750,000 Hispanics are the country’s third-largest minority group
and their influence is on the rise. The 600 people in attendance ranked
the finalists. Their votes were combined with those of the judges to determine
the winners for 2008.
Those present at the awards
gala were also the first to learn the results of the eagerly awaited "Profile
of the Hispanic Community in Canada," a report based on the last
census conducted by Statistics Canada in 2006 and presented by Rosemary
Bender, director general of StatsCan’s social and demographic branch.
This study provides a detailed description of the Hispanic community,
including aspects such as country of origin, geographic distribution in
Canada, educational and income levels, and labour trends.
Here are the winners of
the 10 Most Influential Hispanic Canadians Awards:
Bernardo Berdichewsky, research
Johnny Campuzano, law enforcement
Esmeralda Enrique, dance
Margarita Feliciano, literacy
Mario Guilombo, human rights
Oscar A. Jofre Jr., entrepreneurship
Mario Perez, entrepreneurship
Hon. Guillermo Rishchynski,
diplomacy
Guillermo Silva-Marin, opera
Eduardo Urueña, media
More about Margarita
Feliciano
Feliciano
studied romance languages and literature at the University of California’s
Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, and at the University of Florence in
Italy. She has also specialized in Brazilian literature. Feliciano is
the former coordinator of Glendon’s Certificate in Spanish/English Translation.
A tireless volunteer and advocate
for the community, her work includes being the coordinator of the
Latin American & Caribbean Studies Program and of the Centre for Research
on Latin America & the Caribbean at York. She is past president of
the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and founding member of
INDIGO – a trilingual literary magazine dedicated to promoting
Hispanic literary works. Feliciano sits on the Advisory Board of the Mariano
A. Elia Chair of Italian-Canadian Studies and is the organizer of the
Stong College Heritage Lecture Series at York.
CERLAC Fellow Deborah Barndt Exhibits photos
Photo
exhibit shows the cross-pollination of practice and ideasY-File - 19 November 2008
The name Deborah means “bee”
in Hebrew and true to her name, York environmental studies Professor
Deborah Barndt has researched and worked in various Latin American countries
drawing the nectar out of practices in one place and pollinating projects
in another. Her journey was captured in photographs recently featured
in an exhibit titled Cross-Pollinations: Photography and Social Change
in the Americas.
The exhibit, which ran Oct. 2 to 20
at the Tinto Coffee House in the Roncesvalles neighbourhood in downtown
Toronto highlighted the importance of recovering, reframing and rewriting
history and of sharing stories across generations. Barndt's photo exhibit
will move to the York campus in January and will be displayed on the main
floor of the Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies Building in
the Faculty of Environmental Studies Zig Zag Gallery.
Left:
Professor Deborah Barndt on the opening night
For Barndt, the photographs signify a
journey back in time. “The ironic thing about revisiting history is that
you always see things anew, in terms of the present moment and who you
are now and that digging into the past can also clarify where you are
and where you are going,” says Barndt.
The retrospective exhibit spans three decades
and reflects a journey of particular political movements and revolutionary
educational practices linked to them. In her travels, Barndt has
moved between Toronto and Latin America. She visited Peru in the
1970s, Nicaragua in the ’80s and Mexico in the ’90s. For each trip, she used
her camera to conduct participatory research, capturing people's
daily lives and documenting their personal realities on film.
Barndt sees her photographic work as challenging
convention, allowing people to represent themselves and tell their own
stories. “These photographs and the stories they tell are not only
revolutionary because of their substance but also in how those who have
historically been voiceless and invisible to us participate in the storytelling
and art-making,” says Barndt. She explains how even though most of
the images document experiences from over two decades ago, many still
emulate the vital issues that society faces today.
Left:
Barndt's photograph of a young literacy teacher returning from the National
Literacy Campaign in Nicaragua in 1980
Barndt identifies several different themes
that resonate from the stories woven together in the photographs. One
is the invisibility of women workers in both the north and south. Also
evident is the history of social struggles captured in the images, which
Barndt says show how some are lost to memory because of social amnesia
as well as deliberate obliteration. As well, a radical form of education
appears throughout, drawing content from people's daily lives to think
critically and collectively and to actively participate in challenging
and changing conditions of injustice. Barndt also highlights the use of
cameras and photos as tools in these processes, offering people an opportunity
to see themselves or represent themselves, to claim the value of their
own stories. Finally, the photos reflect the theme of cross-pollinations
– the movement back and forth of peoples across borders, compelled by
war, repression, poverty and politics.
Right:
One of the 400,000 Nicaraguan peasants who learned to read and write during
the 1980 National Literacy Campaign
Barndt’s unconventional research techniques
bring art and research together, eliminating the gap between the two and
challenging conventional notions. Using participatory research, she democratizes
the arts, putting photographs and cameras in the hands of her subjects
so that they may represent themselves. With her work, Barndt hopes
to inspire educators and researchers on how they can bring the arts
into the realm of education and research.
The Community Arts Practice (CAP) joint program
of the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Faculty of Fine Arts does
just that. This program, created by Barndt, holds true to her vision of
linking education, social justice and art in an effort to represent and
convey important issues. The opening of the exhibit also doubled as a
fundraiser for the CAP program – a book sale and silent auction of
Barndt’s photos were held in the front entrance of the coffee house.
Left:
A guest views Barndt's photographs during the exhibit's opening night
at the Tinto Coffee House in Roncesvalles
The Roncesvalles location was significant
to Barndt as she also lives in the area. The culturally diverse neighbourhood
and the dynamic atmosphere created in the coffee house made the location
ideal for the exhibit and fundraiser. “The owners of Tinto have created
a space in our neighbourhood for people to connect – across many differences,”
explains Barndt. Songs sung in both Spanish and English added
another dimension to the opening, bringing the photos to life as music
filled the room.
Barndt plans to continue working within her
community, using art and photography to represent the diversity of people
in Roncesvalles and to help people share their own stories of cross-pollinations. An
upcoming project will see her working with CAP students and Parkdale community
members to create a mural on the front of the coffee house to reflect
the diversity in the area. A second exhibit in her series of retrospectives
in March will focus on community-engaged murals around the world,
to inspire local residents to represent their stories on neighbourhood
walls.
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Jill Andrew
Jason Michelakos completed his B.A. (Hons.) in Philosophy and Political Studies at Trent University in 2004, winning the 
At the undergraduate level, Rolando Aguilera (Osgoode) won for his paper: "
In late 2009, Ann G. Buttrick established the John Buttrick Memorial Bursary in memory of her late husband, John Buttrick. This bursary awards an international student at York majoring in African and Caribbean Studies who demonstrates financial need. 
In recent months, CERLAC Deputy Director Andrea Davis has been leading an effort to develop a new project initiative on youth violence in Canada and Jamaica. Her effort has thus far resulted in the submission of a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant proposal requesting $174,053 for a 24-month initial phase of the project. A summary of the proposal follows. 
Michele Johnson is awaiting word from Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding an application she submitted to CIC's program "
As an outcome of the 
“Contemporary debates on autonomy not only influence the relations between the nation state and indigenous peoples, but they also involve other groups such as Afro-descendant peoples and the rural population. Therefore, as a whole, it is the idea of the state that is discussed in this important volume, which provides both continental assessments and case studies from national and regional experiences from the vast majority of Latin American countries.”
On 21 October 2010, CERLAC hosted a book launch / presentation on "
about
the Caribbean, and directed by York alumna Rhoma Spencer (MFA '01).
Left:
Margarita Feliciano giving her thank you speech at the awards ceremony.jpg)
Feliciano
studied romance languages and literature at the University of California’s
Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, and at the University of Florence in
Italy. She has also specialized in Brazilian literature. Feliciano is
the former coordinator of Glendon’s Certificate in Spanish/English Translation..jpg)
Left:
Barndt's photograph of a young literacy teacher returning from the National
Literacy Campaign in Nicaragua in 1980
Right:
One of the 400,000 Nicaraguan peasants who learned to read and write during
the 1980 National Literacy Campaign