Associate Fellows

John M. Kirk is a “jack of all trades, and a master of none.” He teaches a variety of language courses (Beginning Spanish and Translation), as well as others broadly defined as Latin American civilization. He has done most of his research in Cuba and Mexico, where he travels frequently. He has published several books on Cuban international relations, history and culture; as well as teaching about Cuba, Mexico and Central America. He has also worked as an interpreter for former Premier John Savage in meetings with President Fidel Castro, as well as with Aleida Guevara (daughter of Che), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Argentina), Chilean musical groups Inti Illimani and Quilapayún, and Mexican presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.

He is currently working on a study of Cuban medical internationalism. Kirk helped to develop the sister-city relationship between Halifax and Campeche in Mexico, and directs the Dalhousie Study Abroad Program in Mexico.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Cuba, Mexico, Central America

Keywords: Cuban colonial times, Cuban cultural revolution, Latin American dictators, Spanish

Sara is a long time international solidarity activist and does collaborative thinking with those movements. Her focus is on colonial patterns in solidarity organizing, and how activists with privilege can and do work to change them. Her recent work is on international protective accompaniment in Colombia as an example of altergeopolitics. Her current research looks at how stories travel out of war zones and how they are used to build solidarity and peace. She blogs at decolonizingsolidarity.blogspot.com.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Interest: Colombia

Keywords: Political geography, peace, feminist,. accompaniment, stories, solidarity

Lisa Kowalchuk received her B.A. in Sociology at McMaster University, her M.A. in Sociology from McGill University, and her Ph.D. in Sociology from York University. She taught for four years at St. Mary's University in Halifax before joining U of Guelph in July 2004. Her most recent research, funded by SSHRC, looks at the labour conditions of nurses in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and how these have been affected by the post-neoliberal turn in both of these countries' approaches to health-care policy.  Her past projects have focused on social movements in El Salvador related to land reform and to neoliberal health-care restructuring. Issues of gender justice in the developing country context are another area of interest, and have been a theme of several courses she has taught.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: El Salvador, Central America

Keywords: Social movements, collective action, collective resistance to neoliberal globalization in Central America, gender justice in the developing countries

Professor Landolt received her Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University and joined the department of sociology in 2001. Her research examines the production and reproduction of systems of social exclusion and inequality associated with global migrations. Specific themes include: refugee-migrant political incorporation, precarious work and income insecurity, non-citizenship and precarious legal status. She teaches courses in international migration, immigrant incorporation and transnationalism, ethnicity and racialization, social inequality and qualitative methods.

Professor Landolt's current SSHRC-funded project (2011-13) examines the ways that the Ontario public education system practices inclusion and exclusion in the context of encounters with precarious status migrants. Questions that organize the research include: What is the role of school board workers (i.e administrators within and outside of specific schools, teachers, guidance councellors, frontline staff) in regulating access to schooling? What are the narratives and rules they invoke to frame their practices? What is the role of actors outside of the school systems (e.g. community advocates, legal aid workers) in negotiating access? What networks and resources do these actors and institutions bring to bear in these negotiations? Mapping the networked encounters between different actors and institutions will reveal how the boundary between citizens and non-citizens is produced and contested.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Latin America and Canada

Keywords: refugee-migrant ,political incorporation, precarious work and income insecurity, non-citizenship and precarious legal status

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Mexico, North America

Keywords: Political sociology, international development, gender, urban policy

Pascal Lupien is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brock University. He holds a PhD in Political Science and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Guelph, a Master’s in Information Studies (MIS) from the Université de Montréal, and a BA in Politics from McGill University.

Lupien’s book, Citizens’ Power in Latin America: Theory and Practice (SUNY Press, 2018), looks at how local communities use participatory democracy mechanisms to pursue collective social development goals. His research has also been published in journals such as Democratization; Citizenship Studies; Political Science Quarterly; Information, Communication and Society; Social Media + Society; Gender, Place and Culture; and Latin American Perspectives.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Chile

Keywords: Comparative Politics, Democratic Engagement, Citizen Participation, Social Policy, Social Movements and Activism, Indigenous peoples’ politics, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Laura Macdonald is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. She has been researching and writing about Latin America and global political economy since 1983. She has published numerous articles in journals and edited collections on such issues as the role of non-governmental organizations in development, global civil society, citizenship struggles in Latin America, Canadian development assistance and the political impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She has edited four books: The Politics of Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean, Cambridge University Press (with Tina Hilgers, forthcoming); North American in Question: Regional Integration in an Era of Economic Turbulence, University of Toronto Press, 2012 (with Jeffrey Ayres); Contentious Politics in North America, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (with Jeffrey Ayres); and Post-Neoliberalism in the Americas: Beyond the Washington Consensus?, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (with Arne Ruckert). She is co-author of Women, Democracy, and Globalization in North America: A Comparative Study.  Palgrave Macmillan, 2006 (with Jane Bayes, Patricia Begne, Laura Gonzalez, Lois Harder, and Mary Hawkesworth), and author of Supporting Civil Society:  The Political Impact of NGO Assistance to Central America, Basingstoke, UK and New York City: Macmillan Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1997. She has been Principal Investigator on four SSHRC research grants: “From Minor Player to Major Actor: Canada’s Role in Latin America,” 2012-2017 (Insight Grant, $379,834); “Social Citizenship in North America,” 2006-2009 (Standard Research Grant $89,000) and “Borders and Bodies:  Canadian and U.S. Immigration and Border Control Policies in the New North America” 2003-2006 (Standard Research Grant, $66,000), and 1993-98, “Economic integration, human rights and civil society:  transnational responses to NAFTA” (Standard Research Grant, $35,000).

Macdonald is also a regular media commentator on issues related to Latin American and North American political economy, and is a member of the McLeod Group (www.mcleodgroup.ca), a group of academics and development professionals working to advance Canadian policy and action in international cooperation and foreign affairs.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Mexico

Keywords: NGOs and development, citizenship, NAFTA

Dr. Matthew McBurney is a scholar and practitioner with over 20 years of experience in the field of global development and political science. I have taught various courses in political science and global studies at the university level for 10 years.  Before becoming an academic, I lived in Latin America, specifically Ecuador and Bolivia, for 10 years where I worked for various international organizations, such as the United Nations.  My research aims to understand the intersection of climate change programs, environmental justice, and the political economy of rural livelihoods and Indigenous cosmovisiones in the Andes.  I am also undertaking new research that seeks to explore how Venezuelan migrants reconstruct their identity and community in Bogotá, Colombia.  In my spare time, I love to read books, go camping, and enjoy time with family.

Country(ies) or Region(s) of Specialization: Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela

Keywords: Climate change, environmental justice, political economy, rural livelihoods, Indigenous cosmovisiones