Community workers, activists, artists, students, teachers or anyone interested in using art for education and organizing social change…

MAKING ART,
CREATING CHANGE!

A bi-lingual (Spanish-English) hand-on workshop
on grassroots video, community radio, participatory mural-making and popular theatre
with five community artists from Latin America.

April 25-27, 2003
Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre
and York University
 

Registration form (in PDF)
(despite the April 14th deadline indicated on the form, late registrations are still being accepted)
Further information: popcom@yorku.ca

Special guests include:

• Sergio Valdez Ruvalcaba, community muralist, Dept. of Education and Communication, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico City
• Luis Fernando Arana Gutierrez, grassroots video producer, Mexican Institute for Community Development, Guadalajara, Mexico
• Ileana Lacayo Ortiz, community radio professor, URACCAN university, Bluefields, Nicaragua
• Eduardo Tinkam, community radio programmer, CAMP-Lab, Haulover, Nicaragua
• Danny Caldan, popular theatre animator, Diggers Museum, Panama City, Panama

Friday, April 25, 3-9 PM
At Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre. Introduction to participants and to popular or grass-roots communications through the work of the five community artists.  Includes dinner.

Saturday, April 26, 10 AM- 6PM
At York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts. Four simultaneous workshops on grass-roots video, community radio, participatory mural-making and popular theatre.  Includes lunch.

Sunday, April 27, 11 AM- 9 PM
Starting at York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts for sharing and discussion of productions.
Moving to Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre for presentation of works at the Mayworks Festival of Working People and Arts.
Includes dinner.

*Friends and family are welcome from 7 to 9 PM.

Fees

Students and unwaged $60,
Individuals $ 120,
Organizational representatives $ 200
* Registration includes meals and supplies.

Organized by: the Catalyst Centre and York university’s faculty of Environmental Studies.
Co-sponsored by: Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre, Centre for Spanish-speaking people, Development and Peace, CERLAC, CHRY York Radio, York University’s Fine Arts and the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture.

Registration form (in PDF) (despite the April 14th deadline indicated on the form, late registrations are still being accepted)
Further information: popcom@yorku.ca

In less than a year the waters of the Bio Bio, located in the remote heart of Southern Chile, will begin to rise behind the tremendous concrete walls of the Ralco hydroelectric dam. These waters will inundate a significant portion of the traditional territory of the Pehuenche indigenous people, including several villages. The electricity generated by Ralco will be transmitted north to the Santiago region, where nearly half of Chile's population resides. There it will power a rapidly modernizing urban economy, where a metropolitan upper and middle class populace strives to emulate the North American "way of life."

The presentation will discuss preliminary findings from Alex's first fieldwork trip, focusing on the way that nature is politicized in the controversy over Ralco. In the case of the Bio Bio "nature" is a zone of conflict, the raw material for rival political claims  For this reason, the fate of the river has become emblematic for a more general struggle over social justice, cultural identity and citizenship.

Alex Latta is a fourth year Ph.D. student in Political Science at York. He holds a M.A. in Political Science from York and a B.Sc. in Geography and Political Science from the University of Victoria. His areas of interest are political theory,   environmental politics, and urban studies.

Background info:
A Brief History of the Bio-Bio Controversy
International Rivers Network Bio-Bio Campaign
Documents on Ralco (from RED INTERNACIONAL DE APOYO AL PUEBLO PEHUENCHE)
Chile Dam Plan: Death of a Culture? (Miami Herald, Nov. 2002)
The Pehuenches' Last Stand (World Press Review, June 2001)
Indians, Environmentalists Vow Rough Water for Chile Dam (Christian Science Monitor, May 1998)

More information: contact Alejandra Roncallo aler@yorku.ca

CERLAC and RCDG

present
Plan Puebla Panama and Guatemalan Campesino Struggle
with visiting speaker
RAFAEL GONZÁLEZ  YOC
General Co-ordinator of the Committee of Peasant Unity (CUC), Guatemala

 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 2003
12:30 - 2:00 PM
Room 305 York Lanes
York University

Rafael will speak about the current situation of the campesinos in Guatemala and about the CUC’s activities, with emphasis on their struggles against Plan Puebla Panama  (PPP, the vast infrastructure construction project initiated by Mexico) and the FTAA, struggles which have been rewarded recently with killings and death threats directed against their members.

CUC is the organization to which Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchu’s father, Vicente Menchu, belonged to when he was killed in the massacre at the Spanish Embassy in January 1980, along with other CUC members.

Rafael is born in the rural area of Escuintla, in the south west of Guatemala. He comes to us not only as the coordinator of CUC, but with his personal experience as a peasant; as a worker on the farms growing sugar cane, coffee, cotton and beef cattle; as well as a former employee of the sugar refineries and other export producing factories. He has participated in a variety of events on the national and international level, representing CUC and CNOC on the themes of Land, Rural Development, the FTAA, PPP, etc. in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Spain and Cuba.

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

CUC Website

Maria Elena Mendez  is the Executive Director of the Center of Studies for Women in Honduras (CEM-H) and a professor at the National Autonomous University of Honduras in the Faculty of Social Work. She has been actively involved in promoting the formulation of public policies and cultural changes in Honduras to eliminate discrimination against women and achieve gender equity. Her work with the CEM-H has centered on providing health services and promoting women’s rights through political, organizational, research and communications actions. She has vast experience in the area of Gender and Development. She will speak about her work experiences with the CEM-H around Gender and Citizen Participation, as well as the present social/political context of Honduras, the reconstruction phase after hurricane Mitch, and the regional impact of the current drought - stressing throughout  the importance of international solidarity and connect issues of relevance to people in the North and South.

CEM-H is a feminist organization, working primarily in the promotion of human rights, especially the rights of young women. As part of this work, the organization engages in public work, education and leadership training, support to the organization of women and women's  networks and research and documentation on gender issues. Since 1994, CEM-H has worked in many programs with young women in education and training on their rights, prevention of violence, integrated health and reproduction, identity and gender relation. Through its participation and the strengthening of social processes, CEM-H promotes the formulation of public policies and cultural changes to eliminate discrimination against women and achieve relationships of gender equity.

Horizons of Friendship, the Canadian NGO sponsor of Maria's visit is a community-based, International development organization, located in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, supporting community development work in Central America and Mexico (Mesoamerica). Founded by three friends from Cobourg as a result of a one-year volunteer experience in Honduras, Central America, it was incorporated as a non-profit, charitable organization in 1973. Horizons works with people living in poverty in both rural and urban areas. Self-help community development projects include safe water, health, housing and skills training. As a result of current and past armed conflict in Mesoamerica, Horizons has responded to the plight of thousands of refugees by supporting reconstruction and rehabilitation projects. Horizons has raised millions of dollars for humanitarian assistance to victims of war and political repression.

Background info:
INC (CIDA) - Gender Profile: Honduras (April 2002)
Profile of CEM-H
Honduras Country Profile

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Enriqueta is coming to York to talk about the future of sea turtles in the waters of Central America and how a small group of people can make a difference. She will present a slide presentation (Gentle Giants: Sea Turtles of the South) and a display of photos and stories about people making a difference around the world.

The efforts of Enriqueta and her colleagues in "Proyecto Ayutzin" to protect declining marine turtle populations have broken new ground in Salvadoran marine turtle conservation. In El Salvador nearly 100% of turtle eggs laid are collected and sold, often illicitly, to bars and restaurants to be consumed with beer as an aphrodisiac. Sea turtles are long-lived but take roughly fifteen years to reach a reproductive age, which means that currently fertile females are aging with few young females to replace them. Thus the effects of today’s egg harvest won’t be known for over a decade, but even the most numerous species have suffered a 90% reduction since the 1970s. Over the past three years, Enriqueta has worked with CESTA Friends of the Earth El Salvador at Toluca, one of El Salvador’s most important marine turtle laying beaches. There, in a nesting enclosure that Enriqueta adapted for her egg-incubation study, she and her colleagues documented that the number of eggs hatched over the past three years has risen from 19% of 2123 eggs produced to over 70% of eggs in the last three seasons.

Enriqueta is in Canada as part of "Be the Change! Youth Voices on Global Issues," an initiative by the Sierra Club of Canada BC Chapter's GAIA Project. "Be the Change!" documents stories of people around the world who are making environmentally, socially and economically sustainable choices in their lives.

Background documents / links:

The CESTA Turtle Project (in Spanish)

"Éxito de eclosión en nidos de Lepidochelys Olivacea en el vivero de playa Toluca, Departamento de la Libertad, El Salvador" por Enriqueta Ramírez (in PDF)

More information: lisa_mit@YorkU.CA, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Over the past two decades the "fair trade" network has grown significantly and made some notable inroads into markets in Europe and North America. This has been accompanied by a small but growing body of literature on fair trade, composed of works from a range of different sources--academics, activists, NGOs--who generally do not address themselves to each other. This paper will provide a critical review of these works and the various debates and concordances implicit within them, and will locate fair trade within the relevant literature on political economy and development theory and provide an assessment of its theoretical premises.

Gavin Fridell is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at York University in Toronto Canada.  He is a member of the Rural and Community Development Group (RCDG) at the Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) at York and a participant of the York University Fair Trade Campaign.

See Gavin's CERLAC Working Paper Fair Trade and the International Moral Economy: Within and Against the Market (January 2003).

More information: contact Alejandra Roncallo aler@yorku.ca

This presentation will describe a project that explores women’s perceptions of pesticides in a small Costa Rican village in which a fern plantation provides the primary source of income.  By mapping women's knowledge, attitudes and perceptions (KAP) of both occupational and non-occupational exposure to pesticides, their understandings of potential health effects and their ideas about prevention, this project found that knowledge risk perception does not necessarily correspond to risk reduction
practices and that the development of gender equitable approaches to risk reduction would be appropriate.

Sarah Freedman is currently a Master's Candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University.  Her research interests centre around the interactions between gender, health, development and the environment.  In particular, Ms. Freedman is interested in how issues of social justice and gender equity determine not only exposure to pesticides but also how these exposures are researched and addressed from a policy perspective.

More information: contact Alejandra Roncallo aler@yorku.ca

International migrants have a history of maintaining social, economic, and political ties to their homelands.   However, scholars, activists and policymakers in North America (and Europe) are focusing more on the ways in which immigrant home-town or homeland associations, pan-ethnic organizations,  migrant worker associations, foreign students groups, political parties and related  collectivities organize  and act across borders.  The number and scope of transnational political activities among Canadian resident communities has proliferated, driven by new global communications technology and an increasingly diverse Canadian population.

This workshop aims to
a) map out and analyze the politics of selected transnational practices among Canadian communities of Asian, Latin American, and Caribbean origin, and
b)  draw out the implications of these practices for future research, advocacy, organizing efforts, and policymaking.

The workshop’s agenda is based on the premise that Latin American, Caribbean, and/or Asian political issues need to be understood in relation to the broader global context.  Transnational labour markets, for example, are increasingly crucial to understanding “sustainable livelihood” strategies.  In a similar vein, seemingly local politics often cannot be understood without taking into account the involvement of non-local communities organized along ethnic, religious, hometown, or political lines.

The workshop is animated by a conviction that a revitalized area studies needs to move outside of its traditional geographic boundaries, and could play a role in increasing the relevance of area studies scholarship to broader NGO/activist and policy networks in Canada.  To this end the workshop will include participants from each of these sectors.

More information: contact Luin Goldring goldring@yorku.ca or Sailaja V. Krishnamurti skrishna@YorkU.CA

The Aysén region of Chile is thought to be one of the three least contaminated areas on the planet.  Residents of the region have declared Aysén a "Life Reserve".  Yet Noranda has proposed an aluminum smelter in the region that would produce more than 1.5 million tonnes of solid and gaseous waste per year.  Peter Hartmann will be speak about the environmental, social, and political impacts of the Alumysa smelter and the large movement that has formed in opposition to this project.

Peter Hartmann is an architect, photographer, mountaineer and Assistant-Director of the Comite Nacional pro Defensa de la Fauna y Flora, CODEFF-Aisen (an organization whose president is Jenia Jofre). He has been passionately involved in the campaign against Alumysa since 1991.  Peter is a co-founder of RENACE (the National Ecological Action Network), and of CODESA (Private Corporation for the Development of Aisen).  He was previously the National Director of CODEFF and the Director of CODEFF-Aisen.  He has been in charge of a number of diverse ecological projects and actively involved in various environmental campaigns in Patagonia. His visit to Canada is being hosted by the Halifax Initiative Coalition.

Websites of interest on the Alumysa campaign:

http://www.noalumysa.cl
http://www.nativeforest.org/action_alerts/alumysa_8_29_02.htm
http://www.halifaxinitiative.org/updir/secrets.pdf  (The Halifax Initiative recently released this report - there is a case study on
Alumysa which summarizes the issues)
http://www.ecoportal.net/noti02/n439.htm
http://www.foei.org/mining/action.html
http://www.mapuche-nation.org/english/html/environmental/enviro-17.htm

To join the Yahoo Group listserve on the Alumysa campaign: aysen-reservadevida@gruposyahoo.com

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

CERLAC and The Rural and Community Development Group (RCDG)
Present

Risk Society and New Rurality:
Modernization of a Chilean Agro-industrial Company

With
BEATRIZ CID
Sociologist, Universidad Católica de Chile

 Beatriz's research explores the impact of the global agro-food system operation on local rural areas. She will discuss her case-study regarding the social consequences of agro-industrial modernization by a company in the Central Valley of Chile. This company, under pressure from international capital, has developed intense processes of productive rationalization that shift risk from the global agro-food system to the local production space. This transformation has had an enormous impact on local producers and workers, generating social exclusion and class segmentation in the local community.

Thursday, February 27th, 2003
2:30 to 4:00
Room 390 York Lanes
York University

  Everyone is Welcome

More information: contact Alejandra Roncallo aler@yorku.ca

CERLAC, LACS, and the Departments of Political Science and
History at York

present

Marta Harnecker

speaking on

HISTORY IN THE MAKING:
THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PARTICIPANTS

Marta Harnecker, originally from Chile, has long been active in the forefront of progressive social change in Latin America. Marta studied with Ricoeur and Althusser in Paris from 1963-68. She translated FOR MARX into Spanish. Back in Chile, she was very active in the Popular Unity Government of Allende but fled to Cuba when Pinochet came to power. She has resided in Havana ever since and is now Director of The Latin American Popular Memory Research Center (MEPLA) in Havana. She will speak about her current work on popular history, drawing on her extensive research as well as her direct personal experience in many specific historical processes in the region - from Allende's Chile to present-day Venezuela.

Tuesday, February 25th, 2003
3 - 5 pm

Founders Senior Common Room
(305 Founders College)
York University

Background information on-line:
Rebelión - La página de Marta Harnecker
Judy Rebick Interviews Marta Harnecker
The Military and the Revolution - Harnecker interviews Hugo Chavez (January 09, 2003)
 

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

About the speakers:

Michael Harvey has been First Secretary and Head of the Political Section of the Canadian Embassy in Bogota (Colombia) since August 2000.  Most of his work is in the fields of human security, human rights and the political implications of the Colombian conflict.  He was part of the Security Council team at Canada’s Mission to the United Nations from 1998 to 2000.  He represented Canada at negotiations on Security Council resolutions for East Timor, Sierra Leone and Iraq Sanctions, among others.  He joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in 1996, working at headquarters on OAS affairs and international fisheries law, especially the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Michael holds degrees in Political Science from the University of Ottawa and in Civil Law from McGill University.

Bill Fairbairn has monitored human rights in Colombia for more than a decade. Bill  was formerly Executive Director and South America Programme Coordinator for the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights, and now is a Researcher/Policy Advocate on human rights in Latin America with KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.

Jeanette Sautner (Hon.BA, Trent University, 1993, LLB, University of Toronto, 1998) joined the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as a Political/Economic Officer in 2000 after a number of years in the private sector and at the former Revenue Canada. At headquarters, she practiced as a lawyer in the Trade Law Division from 2000 to 2001, working on a WTO appeals case, and a NAFTA Chapter 11 case.  She is currently posted to Caracas, Venezuela as Second Secretary in the General Relations section.

Maria Paez Victor, M.A.(Sociology, University of Canterbury), Ph.D. (Sociology, York) was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Her first degree was from the Andres Bello University in Venezuela. She taught health and envrionmental policies at York and at U of T for about 4  years. Maria is a former policy advisor to the leader of the Liberal Opposition in Ontario and  policy advisor to the Law Society of Upper Canada. Currently, she works as a consultant (Victor Research) on  social, health and environmental issues in Canada and internationally, and is affiliated with the Centre for Health Studies at York University.
See Maria's statement "Why Canada Should Support Chávez" (CERLAC Bulletin 2.1)
 

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

More on Traditional Ecological Knowledge of the Mapuche
More on Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Canada
Biodiversity Conservation Network

More information: contact Alejandra Roncallo aler@yorku.ca

"The World Social Forum offers opportunities of unparalleled importance to bring together popular forces from many and varied constituencies from the richer and poor countries alike, to develop constructive alternatives that will defend the overwhelming majority of the world's population from the attack on fundamental human rights, and to move on to break down illegitimate power concentrations and extend the domains of justice and freedom"

- Noam Chomsky

Background info:
World Social Forum 2002 - Report by Carlos Torres
Official website of the World Social Forum
www.torontosocialforum.ca
IndyMedia documents on WSF
 

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

More information: contact Alejandra Roncallo aler@yorku.ca

Goal and Methodology
Session I: Economic Globalization
Session II: Rural Development: Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Ecology
Session III: Identities: Gender, Culture, Ethnicity and Migration
Session IV: Canadian Policy
Timetable
Co-sponsoring units at York University

 

Goal and methodology

Goal: The purpose of this workshop is to assess the impact of globalization and neoliberal policies on the challenges of rural and community development (RCD) in the global South. One specific objective will be to analyze relevant Canadian policies.

Methodology: The workshop will consist of four roundtable sessions, each organized around a different set of guiding questions. All four sessions will address a cross-cutting question that will frame the discussion. A set of individuals have committed to serve as resource people for each one of the sessions. Some of them will serve as start-up participants, helping to launch the discussion (denoted by an [S] next to their name in the program below).

Cross-cutting question (for all four sessions): What kinds of alternative practices, responses, and resistances are taking place at the local level? How are they affected by globalization and neoliberal policies? How are they linking up into broader regional, national and cross-border responses? What are the prospects for development “from the bottom up”?

 
 

Session I: Economic Globalization
Monday, January 27, 9:15 am – 12:30 pm

Questions for discussion:

What is the status of rural and community development (RCD) in the global South? To make this assessment, at which indicators of development should we be looking? Is RCD in these regions moving forward, standing still, or regressing?

How have structural adjustment, financial deregulation, free trade, and neoliberal policies affected the prospects for RCD? What impact have new structures of global governance (e.g., the WTO) had on the viability of RCD initiatives?

Where do we go from here? Are changes in global structures and policies needed and are they achievable? What is the scope of action for local forces in the absence of real change at the macro level?

Chair: Ricardo Grinspun (Economics)

Resource participants: John Cameron [S] (PhD, Political Science), Eduardo Canel (Social Science), Paul Escobar (School of Agronomy, Catholic University of Temuco), Susan Healy (PhD, Rural Studies, Guelph), Judy Hellman (Social Science), Ananya Mukherjee-Reed [S] (Political Science), Jorge Nef [S] (School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, Guelph), Liisa North [S] (Political Science), Viviana Patroni (CERLAC and Social Science), Fahim Quadir (International Development Studies and Social Science), Darryl Reed (Social Science and Business and Society), Susan Spronk (PhD, Political Science).

 
 

Session II: Rural Development: Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Ecology

Monday, January 27, 2:00 – 5:00 pm

Questions for discussion:

What is the role of agriculture in RCD? How do export-orientation, agribusiness, and ‘gene revolution’ policies impact on rural development? How should we evaluate peasant production methods vis-à-vis large-scale agricultural export economies?

How do issues of natural resource use relate to RCD? What impact do export-oriented resource extraction and energy policies have at the local level? Is there a sustainable approach to commercial resource extraction that is compatible with RCD? What kind of policy change is required?

What consideration should be given to the environment within a RCD framework? What impact have globalization policies had on local ecosystems? Is ecologically sustainable development achievable within the existing framework of policies?

Chair: Liisa North (Political Science)

Resource participants: Beatriz Cid (Sociologist, Universidad Católica de Chile); Teresa Durán (Center for Intercultural Studies, Catholic University of Temuco), Bob Fugere [S] (Professor of Management, Coady International
Institute), Ricardo Grinspun (Economics), Judy Hellman [S] (Social Science), Wanda Lado (School of Social Work, Catholic University of Temuco), Louis Lefeber [S] (Economics, emeritus), Luis Peralta [S] (Center for Sustainable Development, Catholic University of Temuco).

 
 

Session III: Identities: Gender, Culture, Ethnicity and Migration

Tuesday, January 28, 9:15 am – 12:30 pm

Questions for discussion:

What is the relationship between neoliberal and alternative approaches to RCD and gender relations and ideologies? How are these mediated by class, ethnicity and racialization? What are the types of policies and institutional arrangements that might enhance the bargaining position of specific groups of women and men in various local settings?

How are culture and ethnicity related to RCD?  How do globalization and neoliberal rural development policies affect indigenous cultures, religious practices and institutions, and changing conceptions of cultural identity at the local level?  How can we respond to the challenges of inter-cultural contact at the local level?

How does migration relate to RCD?  How do neoliberal policies impact on migration patterns, communities with high rates of outmigration, and migrant organizations?  How does migration affect changes in (gender, ethnic, class) identities?  What types of RDC policies would be more favourable in contexts of high outmigration?

Chair: Luin Goldring (Sociology)

Resource participants: Teresa Durán [S] (Center for Intercultural Studies, Catholic University of Temuco), Brenda Haiplik (PhD, Comparative, International and Development Education Program, OISE/UT), Judy Hellman (Social Science), Pablo Idahosa (African Studies Program), Wanda Lado [S] (School of Social Work, Catholic University of Temuco), Peter Vandergeest [S] (Sociology).

 
 
 

Session IV: Canadian Policy

Tuesday, January 28, 2:00 – 5:00 pm

Framework: This concluding session is intended to apply the previous three sessions to the specific arena of Canadian trade, foreign, and development policy.

Questions for discussion:

How have Canadian trade, investment, and finance policies affected RCD in the global South? What role has Canada played within the IMF, WB, and WTO, and in the pursuit of trade agreements such as the FTAA – and how do these institutions impact on RCD?

What about Canadian foreign policy, and in particular Canada’s relationship with the United States?  Does this have an impact on Canada’s role toward RCD?

How do Canadian international development policies impact on RCD? Are they “coherent” with broader Canadian policies toward the global South?

Chair: Viviana Patroni (CERLAC and Social Science)

Resource participants: Ricardo Grinspun [S] (Economics), Liisa North (Political Science), Suzanne Rumsey [S] (Primate's World Relief and Development Fund), Bruce Smardon (Political Science).

Timetable

Monday, 27 January, 2003

9:00 – 9:15  Coffee and baked goods
9:15 – 9:30 Welcome and introduction
9:30 – 11:00  Session I
11:00 – 11:15  Break
11:15 – 12:30 Session I (continued)

12:30 – 2:00  Light lunch provided (to those who registered)

2:00 – 3:30  Session II
3:30 – 3:45  Break
3:45 – 5:00  Session II (continued)

Tuesday, 28 January, 2003

9:00 – 9:15  Coffee and baked goods
9:15 – 11:00  Session III
11:00 – 11:15  Break
11:15 – 12:30  Session III (continued)

12:30 – 2:00  Light lunch provided (to those who registered)

2:00 – 3:30  Session IV
3:30 – 3:45  Break
3:45 – 4:45  Session IV (continued)
4:45 – 5:00  Closing

 
 

Co-sponsoring units at York University:

Business and Society Program, Graduate Diploma Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, International Development Studies Program, International Secretariat for Human Development and Democratic Governance, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, and York Centre for Asian Research. This workshop was funded by the AUCC/CIDA Tier 2 York-Catholic University of Temuco Linkage Project.  We gratefully acknowledge additional financial support from York International.
 

Information:
Contact Alison Beatch at <abeatch@yorku.ca>, or phone 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Background info & Resources:
More on Dennis Rodgers
"We Live in a State of Siege: Violence, Crime, and Gangs in Post-Conflict Urban Nicaragua" by Dennis Rodgers
"Joining a Gang... The violence of Ethnography in Contemporary Nicaragua" by Dennis Rodgers (in PDF)
More on Central American Youth Gangs

More articles by Dennis Rodgers on this topic:
(1997) "Un antropólogo-pandillero en un barrio de Managua", Envio, Nicaragua, July.
(2002) "Youth Gangs in Colombia and Nicaragua: New Forms of Violence, New Theoretical Directions?", Utsikt mot utveckling/Outlook on development, 17 (forthcoming).

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

            Por favor, confirmar su participacion a Alejandra Roncallo  aler@yorku.ca

CERLAC and LACS present

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (Partido dos               Trabalhadores, PT), President-elect of Brazil

THE PT IN POWER:  Prospects for Change in Brazil

Lula da Silva, a factory worker by trade and leader in the Workers Party of Brazil (PT), won the Oct. 27, 2002 presidential election in Brazil with 61.5 percent of the vote.  After years of neoliberal, anti-labour policies that have created one of the highest rates of economic inequality in the world, in a country where at least 52 million live in official poverty, a great deal of hope among Brazil's workers, peasants, and shantytown dwellers is riding on da Silva's victory.

However, it is an open question as to what extent the controversial alliances that brought the PT to power, together with other internal and external constraints on policy choices, will compromise the traditionally progressive platform of the PT party. Moreover, fifteen days after assuming the position of President, Lula will have to make a decision regarding the FTAA - a decision that will not only affect Brazil, but all of the Americas. As regional commentators remark an apparent revival of leftist politics in the region, it is also worth asking what  the reciprocal impacts might be of the PT's assumption of power vis-à-vis other regional political and economic phenomena, such as the crisis in Argentina, Plan Colombia, or Chávez and the current political turmoil in Venezuela.

Background reading:
Brazil on threshold of  new era with Lula victory by Walden Bello
Has Lula Sold Out? by Roger Burbach
Brazil Victory and Hope Wins Over Fear in Brazil by Judy Rebick
For Lula and the PT, Winning Brazil's Elections Not the Biggest Challenge After All
Brazil: Lula's Prospects
Brazil’s Lula reassures Wall Street, warns workers of austerity

Bank Information Center Resources on the PPP
FAQs about the PPP
La Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio

On-line slideshow and list of resources
An Alberta company faces growing opposition to a controversial pipeline project (July 29, 2002, MacLean's)
Ecuador, Oil & Repression: Canadian connection
The Advocacy Project: Defending the Amazon
More on Oil in Ecuador
World Rainforest Movement on Oil Exploration in Ecuador

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Dr. Andrés Yurjevic is a Chilean economist. He holds the UNESCO Professorship in Sustainable Development and directs the Center for Sustainable Development in the Catholic University of Temuco, Chile. Dr. Yurjevic is also the Chilean director of the York-Catholic University of Temuco Linkage Project, a project that seeks to strengthen the Center for Sustainable Development as a teaching and research institution. He is presently a Visiting Fellow of CERLAC.

For further information, please contact Ricardo Grinspun at ricardo@yorku.ca or Alejandra Roncallo at aler@yorku.ca.

Photo by Danielle Schami

Alternative Food System Planning & Education  in Mexico

Danielle will screen her documentary video and discuss her thesis research on the Guadalajara (Mexico)-based project: "El Circulo de Produccion y Consumo Responsable" (The Circle of Responsible Production and Consumption).  El Circulo is a network of small-scale farmers, environmental educators and urban consumers in the state of Jalisco working together to build a sustainable alternative to the dominant food system. The network is based on three key concepts and practices: organic agriculture, consumer awareness and fair trade.

Danielle's area of research interest is Alternative Food System Planning and Education more generally, and will present her case study as one example of a community-based alternative to the dominant global food system.

Background info & Resources:
The Global Food Basket (on the dominant global food system)
The Threat of the Globalization of Agriculture By Vandana Shiva
Community Food Systems: Visions of a Different Food System
FoodShare (Toronto, Ontario)
The BC Food Systems Network

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

See also:
Andrew Kei Miller on the Poetry Express
More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

More information: Alejandra Roncallo (aler@yorku.ca); 416-736-2100 ext. 33103.

See also:
More on Violence in Medellín
The War Moves to the City
Article Published by Pilar Riaño-Alcalá on Cultural Identity of Medellín Youth (in Spanish)

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705 or

CRS Co-ordinator, Colleen Burke at cburke@yorku.ca 416- 736-2100 Ext. 30391

CERLAC and Theatre@York

present

". . .I found the characters [in this play] trying to figure out the sort of questions that so many Chileans were asking themselves privately, but that hardly anyone seemed interested  in posing in public. How can those who tortured and those who were tortured coexist in the same land? . . . And how do you reach the truth if lying has become a habit?"

-- Ariel Dorfman.

Carlos Torres is a social activist currently working with The Centre for Social Justice. Carlos originally came to Canada as a Chilean political refugee fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship.

Dr. Judith Pilowski is a Chilean clinical psychologist with vast experience in the area of trauma. She has an undergraduate degree from York University and conducted graduate studies at the University of Toronto. She is presently a member of the health network of the Canadian Center for Victims of Torture. She was forced into exile from Chile and came to Canada in 1975.

Background:
Interview with Dorfman on memory and truth
Interview with Dorfman in The Progressive
Impunity rules in Chile (The Guardian, Dec 2000)
Chile's legacy of torture, murder,  international terrorism and "the disappeared"
 

See also:
Interview with Carlos Urquilla of FESPAD

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705
 

Dr. H. Nigel Thomas is a professor of Literature at Laval University in Quebec. A novelist, poet, short story writer and literary theorist, he is perhaps best known for his novel, Spirits in the Dark first published in 1993. This groundbreaking novel offered a critical and honest examination of homosexuality and the anxiety of black cultural identity within a particular context of religious repression and homophobia in the Caribbean. Among his other publications are a more recent novel, Behind the Face of Winter (2001), and From Folklore to Fiction: Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel (1988).

More information: aadavis@yorku.ca, (416)736-2100 x 33320

Leocadio Juracan and Julian Marcelo are Cakchiquel Mayas from Solola province (near Lake Atitlan), Guatemala, and are delegates of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) - an organization that works to defend the rights of workers on large coffee, sugar, and cotton plantations and to recover lands taken from the Mayan communities over the past century.

They will speak of the experience of the El Paraíso Cooperative, whose best organic beans are purchased by the CCDA to be marketed internationally and within Guatemala as “Café Justicia!” – a Fair Trade Plus coffee line. The presentation will also touch upon the larger context of indigenous and land rights in Guatemala.

More information on the speakers:

Leocadio is national president of the CCDA and is also a member of the  executive of CNOC (Coordinadora Nacional Obrero Campesina) - the Guatemalan  umbrella campesino coalition that includes CONIC, CUC, the CCDA and others. Although Leocadio lives in a small Mayan village, he has participated in a  number of international activities and is well-versed in the plight of farmers  around the world.  He a dynamic speaker and has attended both international conferences on the Plan Puebla Panama, so can speak with some authority on the threat that trade initiative poses to the environment and indigenous and campesino rights.

Julian is a young activist from Santa Cruz Quixaya in Solola province. He has worked very closely with the coffee cultivation and processing at the CCDA Cooperative of El Paraiso and can speak with authority about the  cultivation, processing and marketing of fair-trade organic coffee. He can also provide a youth  perspective on the Mayan movement and campesino organizing.

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext 88705.

Reviving Indigenous  Weaving Techniques with visiting speakers Marnie Schilken Executive Director  Joanna Pérez National and International Relations of Fundación Chol-Chol

Through hands-on training programs based in local communities, Fundación Chol-Chol  para el Desarrollo Humano works with indigenous Mapuche people throughout the ninth region of Chile, who are interested in exploring their potential for building self-reliance and self-sufficiency, improving their economic, social and technical plights, and supporting the rebirth of many traditional Mapuche cultural ways.  Every Mapuche individual with whom the Foundation works has come voluntarily to the Foundation to take an active step in creating change for a better future.  Marnie Schilken, the Executive Director of Fundación Chol Chol,  and Joanna Pérez will illustrate how the indigenous Mapuche women of Southern Chile have taken charge of their lives by creating and supporting self-sustainable change through the revival of indigenous weaving techniques.   Other initiatives undertaken by the  Foundation--such as integrated educational programs and systems of micro-credit lending-- will be presented with particular focus on how these have generated autonomy and self-sufficiency in the area.

See also:
Mapuche Documentation Centre
The Mapuche Nation

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Cuban writer Enrique Oltuski    Author of the newly-released Vida Clandestina:  My Life in the Cuban Revolution

Enrique Oltuski was a leading force in the urban underground during the struggle and ultimate triumph of the Cuban Revolution.  He was appointed Minister of Communications in the first revolutionary government, and later served under Che Guevara as Deputy Minister of Industries and in the Central Planning Committee.  He is currently the Cuban Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Merchant Marine.

Vida Clandestina, a compelling memoir which spans the period from March 1952 to February 1959, recounts the experiences of Enrique Oltuski’s revolutionary life.  A middle-class, U.S.-educated Cuban Jew and Shell Oil executive, Oltuski joined guerillas Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in their struggle against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.  He launched a secret newspaper, raised money for medical supplies and weapons, organized military operations, and was a leader of the “26th of July Movement”.  The book also deals with his personal story as a young university student, graduate, and new husband.

Although he has spoken in the United States several times, most recently at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Mr. Oltuski has been denied a travel visa by the Bush Administration to appear at several scheduled speaking engagements in the U.S. this month.

Everyone is welcome.

More information: ruthk@yorku.ca, ext. 22078

While sponsored by the Graduate Diploma Programme in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at York University, the workshop is open to any graduate student from any program at York who may wish to attend.

Background:

CNOC (the National Coordinating Body of Campesino Organizations) began working in 1993 in order to support dialog and negotiations in the peace process.  CNOC’s four main areas of work have generally included land issues, labor rights, demilitarization and respect for human rights to specifically support economic, social and political development in Guatemala.

CNOC is also part of the growing movement to stop Plan Puebla Panama, which would have damaging environmental, community, and economic impacts on Guatemala and the rest of Central America.  They have participated in international strategy meetings and initiated outreach to indigenous communities, in order to create a stronger grassroots opposition to the plan.

Guatemala’s colonial history led to the concentration of land ownership became in the hands of the wealthy elite and multinational corporations such as the U.S.-based United Fruit Company.  The modest land reforms of the “ten years of spring” from 1944-54 were reversed after the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup, and inequality of land ownership was one of the reasons for the 36-year civil war during which the wealthy land owners allied themselves with the military forces terrorizing the country.  While the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 officially brought the war to an end, it did not initiate land reforms significant enough to solve the longstanding problem of unequal ownership.

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Henry Veltmeyer is Professor of Sociology and International Development Studies, St. Mary's University; Adjunct Professor in Political Science and Development Studies, Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico.  He is the winner of Robert Kenny Prize (University of Toronto) for best book contribution to Labour Studies in Canada (2002).  Recent publications include Desarrollo Alternativa en America Latina. (UAZ/UNESCO, 1999); Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (Macmillan UK, 2000); Transcending Neoliberalism; Community-Based Development in Latin America (Kumarian, 2001);  Globalization Unmasked (Fernwood Books/Zed Books, 2001); Cardoso's Brazil: A Land for Sale (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003) and; Development in an Era of Globalization (Ashgate, 2003).

See also: Argentina: Between disintegration and revolution by James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, in Rebelión

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

with Visiting Speaker Viviana Díaz Organization of the Relatives of the Disappeared Political Prisoners, Chile

Background:
Chile has not Forgotten - interview with Viviana Díaz (in English)
Interview with Viviana Díaz (in Spanish)
Human Rights Watch on Chile
Las Razones de las Victimas - sobre Viviana Díaz y la AFDD
Derechos Chile (English and Spanish versions)
 

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

Homeless Nicaraguan labourers and their families along the highway near El Tuma-La Dalia, who have been evicted from coffee farms. Photo: Gerry Hadden, NPR

Blanca Rosa Molina, an agronomist and small farmer from Nicaragua, will speak on the coffee industry and the impact of the international coffee crisis in Nicaragua.  Ms. Molina is a founder of the Danilo Gonzalez Cooperative, which produces and markets coffee. The co-op belongs to the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives (FENACOOP), an Oxfam Canada partner, which aims to improve the living conditions of farmers and their families.  Ms. Molina sits on the FENACOOP board and is president of the Northern Nicaragua Coffee Cooperative Association, which specializes in the marketing of coffee.  Ms. Molina is also a founder of the Women's Section of UNAG (Nicaraguan Farmer and Rancher Union) in Matagalpa, and has been extensively involved in grassroots community development initiatives since the 1970s.

Oxfam Canada is hosting Ms. Molina’s visit in conjunction with Oxfam International’s Make Trade Fair campaign.  Her visit complements York’s Fair Trade Initiative, spearheaded by Professor Darryl Reed of the Business and Society Program.

Background on the coffee crisis in Nicaragua:

A Coffee Crisis' Devastating Domino Effect in Nicaragua
Nicaragua: Coffee crisis and drought hit most vulnerable
Nicaragua: Land Of Coffee and Famine
Various articles on the crisis and the relevance of Fair Trade
Oxfam fair trade coffee campaign

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705

* NOTE: at 12 pm, an hour before this presentation, Mr. Laird’s film “And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon” will be screened in the same venue (the Sound Stage).  About this film, see: http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/dish.html  While the talk with Christopher Laird can be attended as a separate event, it is recommended that those able to arrive one hour before to see this film do so, as the film provides relevant background to which the speaker will make reference.
 

More on Christopher's work:

Christopher Laird's  work has been selected for many international festivals, and his awards include: The Commonwealth Film & Television Festival 1980 "Special Award for use of video for community development"; the National Media Awards for Best Series three times for the weekly arts magazine "Gayelle";  Best Documentary on AIDS and Best Documentary for "Crossing Over," which also won Best Video Documentary at the 2nd Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique in 1990.

In 1991 the landmark 13 part series "Caribbean Eye" on culture in the region, produced by Christopher, won best series at the regional Caribbean Broadcasting Union media awards and a special CARICOM prize for Caribbean integration.

In 1992 Christopher directed "And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon," a documentary for the BBC/TVE series  Developing Stories which won Best Environmental Film and Best Video Documentary at the 3rd Caribbean Film Festival in Martinique in 1992 and Best Public Affairs Documentary at the 13th Annual International Film & Video Competition held by the National Black Programmers Consortium in Maryland USA 1993.

In 1996 he won Awards for excellence in the National Media Awards for best Current Affairs Programme ("The Pink Mealy Bug in the Caribbean"), Best Documentary ("Habitat ll - Think Global, Act Local") and for the Best Children’s Programme in the Caribbean by the Caribbean Broadcast Union ("The Music of the Street"). In 1998 he won the Pan American Health Organisation’s award for Best Television Programme on Health Matters in the Caribbean  for his drama on AIDS in the workplace, "After One Time is Two Time."
 

On Banyan:
(from Popular media and cultural identity in the Eastern Caribbean by Gregory Rabess)

What role have popular media played in the formation and reproduction of cultural identities and in mainstream media programme content? Gayelle was a  multi-cultural television programme produced by Banyan on contract for Trinidad and Tobago State Television (TTT). For the first time it featured African and Indian presenters and themes on the same show. Television programming in Trinidad  and Tobago tended to apply an apartheid approach to programming in which there are separate shows for the separate races, African and Indian, which make up the society. Gayelle was able to bridge the racial divide, though not without  problems and even resistance by elements within the two major ethnic groups.  The programme forced a reconsideration of national cultural identity by these ethnic groups. It also reported on remote towns and villages and dealt with  aspects of popular culture generally ignored by mainstream programming.

 Here is an example where an independent producer was able to fill in a gap in  television programming and impact on cultural identity. Gayelle also used  alternative presentation formats, dialect and other oral presentation devices  rooted in the culture and challenged dominant broadcasting practice in the context of Trinidad and Tobago. It represented an alternative approach to  sourcing material, to obtaining local programme content. Despite being among  the top three most popular TV shows in Trinidad, the programme received  reduced funding every time it came up for renewal until the programme was finally taken off the air.

Banyan also produced a number of television documentaries on Caribbean culture including Caribbean Eye and And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon,  which have been aired on most if not all TV stations in the Anglophone Caribbean  and which have received regional and international acclaim. Again these used  non-traditional presentation formats and other production values which resonate  with Caribbean culture and lifestyle thus pioneering what might be considered a Caribbean popular media aesthetic distinct from American or European approaches or production values.

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705