AMERICAS PLURAL
JANUARY 2013
DIRECTOR’S WELCOME
It is my pleasure to write the Director’s introduction to this edition of Americas Plural. I took over the Directorship of the Institute in July 2012, and although my tenure of this post has been limited, much of what I see at ISA is very familiar. My first contact with what was then the independent Institute of Latin American Studies was over forty years ago when I began my PhD at University College. At that time there were relatively few scholars of Latin America and the Institute of Latin American Studies, which was founded in 1965 under the leadership of Professor Robin Humphreys, was a real oasis where one could attend seminars and meet other scholars working on the region – a role it still performs today. Dame Denise Holt, who has served as British Ambassador to Mexico and Spain, currently holds ISA’s Fellowship in his name and has been appointed as chair of its Advisory Council. I admit to being considerably more familiar with the Latin American side of the Institute’s activities than I am with the North American side, but I am learning fast with the support of Dr. Matthew Hill, who has been promoted to the post of Lecturer in US Politics. In 2004 ISA became a member of the School of Advanced Study. The School as a whole is unique in Higher Education in the UK being the only university institution in receipt of special funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), to promote and facilitate the research on the Americas. Because of this unique role it does not participate in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) but is reviewed on a quinquennial basis. A review is currently being undertaken and the outcome will be known later this month. Meanwhile, ISA continues to act as a national co-ordinating centre and to build upon the reputation for events and publications for which it has become so well known in the sector over many years. In the summer 2012 we launched a conference grant scheme for which we received forty applications. We were able to make eight awards, including for conferences to be held outside London. ISA is committed to inter-institutional collaborations, particularly with regard to academic events, where it is able to offer high quality conferencing facilities free of charge and take on all elements of event management logistics. As the School of Advanced Study
does not participate in the REF, ISA is unique in offering a neutral space in which such events can be held. In July 2012 we also launched a stipendiary fellowship scheme. We received over seventy applications and have appointed five Fellows (listed overleaf). These fellows will not only undertake their own research, but will take forward the Institute’s mission in research promotion and facilitation through the convening of academic events and being involved in the editing of publications including conference proceedings. In addition to the events listed, the Institute will be running a training seminar for researchers that aims to improve skills in creating, storing and cataloguing digital images taken in the field. This will be a collaborative venture with the British Library that complements the work of that organisation’s Endangered Archives Programme. Details of the skills training will be circulated to the scholarly community once dates are confirmed, but it is expected to be in late April 2013. ISA is also instituting a number of smaller projects that reinforce its position as a national and international co-ordination centre. These include the redevelopment of the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Handbook which lists all academic staff working on Latin America and the Caribbean, the directory of libraries, archives and museums with holding relevant to the study of the region, and a redeveloped list of PhD theses in progress. This will be re-launched in January 2013. The Institute will also host the launch of the LAC Report, funded by the British Academy, in the first half of 2013. To supplement its role as a national co-ordination centre, the Institute is also developing a new online repository of completed PhD theses in the School of Advanced Study’s research repository, SASSpace, which will allow any successful PhD candidate to make their thesis available online free of charge in perpetuity, thereby enhancing their profile and the speed at which the research is disseminated. These are just some of the activities we have planned for 2013. We have further ideas for new developments, and we eagerly await the outcome of the HEFCE review of the School of Advanced Study as a whole, to see how far we can take them forward. I and my colleagues look forward to collaborating with you in promoting research and knowledge about the regions that we all care so passionately about.
Thursday 17 January 2013, 17:30 Argentine Film Series: Estrellas [Stars] (2007), by Federico León and Marcos Martínez Invited speaker: Dr. Joanna Page (University of Cambridge) Room 349 (3rd floor) Wednesday 23 January 2013, 17:30 Challenging the revolutionary order: homosexuality as a destabilizing weapon in the contemporary Cuban novel María E. López, Lecturer of Hispanic cultural studies in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at London Metropolitan University Room 104 (Senate House, first floor)
Monday 4 March 2013, 10:00 Alternative Strategies for Mining-based Economies: A Seminar on Mining and Development in the Andean Region Jointly organised by the Bolivia Information Forum (BIF) and Peru Support Group (PSG) The Senate Room (Senate House, First Floor) Tuesday 5 March 2013, 17.30 Panel and book launch The Origins of the US War on Terror by Mattia Toaldo Room G34 (Ground Floor)
EVENTS Friday 26 April 2013, 09:30 Sino-US Struggles Over Asia: Cultural, Economic and Military Factors in SinoU.S. Relations in South-East Asia. Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Friday 26 April 2013, 10:00 American Foreign Policy and US Presidential Elections Professor Thomas A. Schwartz (Vanderbilt University), Professor Wednesday 13 March 2013, 09:30 George C. Edwards III (Texas A&M Fifty Years Without JFK: Rethinking Global University), Professor John Dumbrell Diplomacy (Durham University) ,Professor David Friday 1 February 2013, 09:00 Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman (KCL) Ryan (University College Cork), Democracy Promotion: Hegemony, The Senate Room (Senate House, First Dr Andrew Preston (University of Resistance and the Shifting Discourses of Floor) Cambridge), Dr Steven Casey (London Democracy in International Relations School of Economics), Dr Sylvia Ellis Call for papers: matthew.hill@sas.ac.uk Monday 18 March 2013, 09:00 (Northumbria University), Dr Sandra The Senate Room (Senate House, First A Liberal Tide: Towards a paradigm shift in Scanlon (University College Dublin), Floor) Latin American Migration and asylum policy- Dr Michael F. Hopkins (University of making? Liverpool), Dr Bevan Sewell (University Friday 1 February 2013,17:45 In collaboration with ICwS, LSE and KCL of Nottingham) ,Dr Maria Ryan What actually gets transmitted in the The Senate Room (Senate House, First (University of Nottingham), Dr Andrew “Export” of Democracy? Floor) Johnstone (University of Leicester), Dr Professor Laurence Whitehead Andrew Priest (Aberystwyth University), (University of Oxford) Friday 12 April 2013, 10:00 The Senate Room The Senate Room (Senate House, First Arts and Belonging in the Americas Today (Senate House, First Floor) Floor) In collaboration with Newcastle University Call For Papers: Thursday 2 May 2013, 17:30 Thursday 21 February 2013, 17:30 patricia.oliart@newcastle.ac.uk; Republicans, Liberals and Constitutions Argentine Film Series: mi_nicholson@hotmail.com in Nineteenth-Century Latin America El último verano de la boyita [The Last The Court Room (Senate House, first floor) Professor Jeremy Adelman (Princeton Summer of La Boyita] (2009), by Julia University) Solomonoff Tuesday 16 April 2013, 09:30 Room G22/26 (Ground Floor) Invited Speaker: Dr. Debbie Martin (UCL) A Conference on the Inter-disciplinary Study Room 104 (1st floor) of Race in the Americas Saturday 11 May 2013, 10:00 Convenor: Professor Guy Thomson, Latin American Music seminar The Institute for the Study Warwick University Room G22/26 (Ground Floor) of the Americas is funded to host Organisers: James Heath and Adunni conferences, seminars and other Adams Saturday 18 May 2013, 10:00 academic events that promote Birmingham and Midland Institute, 9 South American Archaeology Seminar research on the Americas. Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BS Institute of Archaeology We welcome ideas and applications for scholarly events, and can contribute experienced and professional staff to help you organise and execute every aspect of your event, including planning, liaising with services and managing your budget. Contact Olga Jimenez , our Events Manager, at olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk for further details.
Friday 19 April 2013, 09:30 Constitutional Reform and the Commonwealth Caribbean: Democratic Legitimacy and Constituent Power In collaboration with Oxford Brookes University Professor Simeon McIntosh, Dr Joel ColonRios, Susan Dickson, Dr Derek O’Brien, Se-shauna Wheatle The Court Room (Senate House, first floor)
Friday 24 May 2013, 10:00 The State of the Union: Policy Consensus and Division in the US Administration In collaboration with De Montfort University British Library Tuesday 18 June 2013, 09:30 ACLAIIR/AGM The Court Room, Senate House
EVENTS HIGHLIGHTS
Professor Linda Newson was welcomed as the new Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas by staff and fellows as well as students, academics, diplomats and others with an interest in the study of the Americas. At her welcome reception on Wednesday 10 October, Professor Newson commended the work of the Institute and reflected on its national and international position within the interdisciplinary field of the study of the Americas. “Our mission is not only to work with the community of scholars of the Americas, but also to collaborate with the people and institutions in the business and diplomatic worlds. Over the years ISA has developed very productive working relationships with embassies, NGOs and other institutions, and we intend to build on such collaborations”. Prof. Newson Prominent figures such as His Excellency Mauricio Rodríguez Múnera, Ambassador of Colombia to the UK, and Mr Luis Juste, Director of Santander Universities UK, were amongst those wishing to extend their best wishes to Professor Newson. Dean and Chief Executive of the School of Advanced Study, University of London, Professor Roger Kain introduced Professor Newson and later reflected on the success of the evening. “Linda is a very significant figure in the field of Latin American studies and will be a real asset to ISA as it continues its mission to facilitate and promote research as a part of the School of Advanced Study. It was good to see how warmly she was welcomed to the School by the many Americanists who attended her Welcome Reception.”
‘Staging the Future: Argentine Films in Dialogue’ Screening workshop with invited guests & open discussion. From January 2013, the Institute for the Study of the Americas will feature groundbreaking Argentine productions that offer alternative ideas of the future. Each piece tackles different questions regarding issues of gender, race, inequality, politics and community. After the screening, there will be a guest speaker who will give some reflections about the film followed by an open discussion with the audience. The sessions will run monthly on the last Thursday at 5.30pm. The series will begin on January 17 with the screening of Estrellas [Stars] (2007), a provocative film directed by Federico León and Marcos Martínez, which documents how the inhabitants of a shanty town in Buenos Aires have developed a new entrepreneurial business: they play themselves as ‘poor’ and rent their homes as film sets for a living. Estrellas ironically reflects on the social trend that has made poverty a fashionable subject. The invited speaker will be Dr Joanna Page, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies at Cambridge. All welcomed. Coordination: Dr. Cecilia Sosa, Associate Fellow.
On Wednesday 21 November 2012, ISA hosted the launch of School of Advanced Study Leverhulme Trust Fellow, Dr Isabel Yaya’s book ‘The Two Faces of Inca History: Dualism in the Narrative and Cosmology of Ancient Cuzco’ The historical narratives of the Inca dynasty, known to us through Spanish records, present several discrepancies that scholarship has long attributed to the biases and agendas of colonial actors. Drawing on a redefinition of royal descent and a comparative literary analysis of primary sources, this book restores the pre-Hispanic voices embedded in the chronicles. It identifies two distinctive bodies of Inca oral traditions, each of which encloses a mutually conflicting representation of the past that, considered together, reproduces patterns of Cuzco’s moiety division. Building on this new insight, the author revisits dual representations in the cosmology and ritual calendar of the ruling elite. The result is a fresh contribution to ethnohistorical works that have explored native ways of constructing history.
FELLOWSHIPS In Summer 2012, ISA launched a new stipendiary fellowship scheme. Following a selection process from 73 applications, the following fellows were selected: United States Dr Tom Packer, who works on the politics of the US south with particular reference to Jesse Helms (October 2012 to March 2013) Dr Mattia Toaldo, who works on democracy promotion in US foreign policy (January 2013 to June 2013) Latin America and the Caribbean Dr Ainhoa Montoya, who works on El Salvador, with particular regard to the role of culture and memory in the ongoing violence in the state despite the widely praised democratisation Dr Annabel Pinker, who current work seeks to address the novel possibilities for rethinking the state presented by the study of recent trends towards the reconstitution and strengthening of decentralised government in Latin America Dr Rosie Doyle who works on the history of Mexico with particular regard to the development of rights in the long nineteenth century, grievances with the state and the right to insurrection. This stipendiary scheme coexists with the current visiting research fellowships, which currently counts with Dr Ryan Brading, and Dr Emine Tahsin.
Ryan Brading, has been a visiting research fellow
at the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) since October 2012. He received his PhD from the Ideological and Discourse Analysis programme at the University of Essex. His doctoral research on Venezuelan political affairs has been converted into a book titled: Populism in Venezuela (New York: Routledge, 2013). Towards the end of October a book launch was organised at ISA, for Ryan to present this theoretical and empirical monograph - describing the nature of populist practices in this oil-rich South American country. He is currently working on the social and political impact of the cancer Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez has been fighting since June 2011. Ryan is also analysing the emergence of an oil geopolitical hegemonic triangle: China, Venezuela and Cuba. One of the projects these 'socialist' nations have signed consists of a strategy to explore and drill for oil in Cuba’s waters in the Gulf of Mexico. This emerging oil geopolitical alliance is considered important because it represents a clear threat to America’s hegemony and dominance in its own backyard.
Rosie Doyle explains her work at ISA: “I have come
to the institute having completed a PhD in nineteenthcentury Mexican Political History at the University of St Andrews. The research I plan to carry out at the Institute for the Study of the Americas will be part of a project that looks at the way that politics works in periods of political transition and institutional disarray. It will look at two periods of macro political change and transition in the Mexican context; the insurgency and the early national period (1810-1876) and the Revolution (1910-1920) with reference to the way in which political actors use the discourse of rights, particularly the right to revolution, insurrection and/ or petition to participate in politics and to forward political plans and proposals as part of the process of liberal constitutionalism. The development of the discourse of rights from natural, civil political to social rights within the petitions the political plans of actors from outside the state as well as in the new constitutions and laws and the interaction between them will be central to the analysis. The research will be developed through an interdisciplinary workshop and the publication of a number of articles. The project builds on the work I am developing on para-legal forms of politicking in Mexico, my doctoral research and the work of the University of St Andrews AHRC project ‘The Pronunciamiento in NineteenthCentury Mexico 1821-1876’ of which my PhD was a part. The thesis was a regional study of the way political and social actors in the State of Jalisco in western Mexico engaged with the liberal revolutionary practice of the pronunciamiento to effect political change between independence in 1821 and the fall of government of Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1852. It studied the dynamics of the use of the practice, which was a form of political petitioning with armed backing or ‘forceful negotiation’, through which coalitions of military, political and clerical actors, calling on their right to revolution or petition, forwarded political plans for just laws, constitutions, ideas of good government and effected most of the major political changes of the period, including independence itself. Pronunciamientos were part of the process of state building and liberal constitutionalism”.
RESEARCH Women and US Foreign Policy Interview Project Linda Newson continued her research on apothecaries and the medicine trade in Peru in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which is funded by the Leverhulme Trust. In September she undertook research in historical archives of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, where medicine was first taught in colonial times, and in the Archivo General de la Nacion and Archivo Arzobispal. She presented a paper on this research at the 54th International Congress of Americanists in Vienna. While in Lima, she visited two projects, one at the Archivo de la Sociedad
This is a receipt (prescription) signed by Cristóbal Duarte Dávila indicating the medicines that he had received from the apothecary Bernardo Gil (one ounce of mixed fern and violet syrup, one real of tincture of sandalwood for the liver and one real of rose ointment). This is part of a legal claim Gil made for payment. Archivo arquidioscesano, Lima, Causas civiles legajo 50 exp. 24 fol. 35 1640.
de Beneficiencia Publica and the other in the Faculty of Medicine at San Marcos, which are being funded by the British Library’s Endangered Archives programme, on which she serves as a international advisor. Following up on her earlier book with Susie Minchin, entitled From Capture to Sale, which examined the African slave trade from Upper Guinea to Peru, this year Linda has published two articles on the nature of the slave trade in Upper Guinea, one in the Journal of African History examining the role of Africans and Luso-Africans in the trade and the other in Brokers of Change: Atlantic Commerce and Cultures in PreColonial Western Africa, edited by Toby Green (OUP) on the commodities that were exchanged. Both these articles are based on Portuguese documents found in the Inquisition section of the Archivo General de la Nacion in Lima.
This project examines the multidimensional relationship between US foreign policy and women. This April I am travelling to Washington, D.C. to interview Afghan women regarding their experiences of US foreign policy in the last ten years. I will be interviewing these women alongside Dr. Nahid Aziz, a Clinical Psychologist at Argosy University. The interviews will cover a range of topics from both personal and professional experiences of engaging with US programmes and personnel in Afghanistan. These interviews will help understand the environment within which US foreign policy implementation and recipients connect and interact. The project is also hosting a series of panels on women and US foreign policy at the biggest US foreign policy conference in Europe this year to be held at the University of Warwick (16-18 September 2013). The interview repository will be officially launched at the conference. Invited speakers to the Globalisation and American Grand Strategy in a Time of Austerity conference will include a high-ranking female representative of the US foreign policy establishment, and other foreign policy notables such as Joseph Nye and John Ikenberry.
The Atlantic Archive: UK-US Relations in an Age of Global War 1939-1945 project This project examines official British perspectives towards the United States during the World War II on political, economic and social issues. The primary aim of this project is to build an online database of digitised British government documents discussing the US during six years of international conflict, primarily drawn from holdings kept at the UK’s National Archives in London. The success of the database is dependent on the breadth of the fields covered: to date, approximately 5,000 images of 2000 documents feed into the online hub. Which is why, in 2013, we are recruiting two Project Research Administrators to increase the number of documents digitised and placed online. We are also, in collaboration with the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS, and with the support of the Transatlantic Studies Association, host an international conference in late 2013 on twentieth century transatlantic relations. The Atlantic Archive database will be officially launched at the conference.
Registration now open for the event Democracy Promotion: Hegemony, Resistance and the Shifting Discourses of Democracy in International Relations, to be held in The Senate Room, Senate House, 01 February 2013, 09:00 - 17:30
Improve the impact and visibility of your PhD research for free: Submissions are welcome to the newly created ISA collection in the online repository SAS-Space.
Organise an event at ISA!
Olga Jimenez, our Events Manager, would be delighted to explain further. Olga.Jimenez@sas.ac.uk
Employment Opportunity:
Atlantic Archive Project Research Administrator Application deadline: 13 January 2013
ISA AT GLANCE
Inaugural session of the series ‘Staging the Future: Argentine Films in Dialogue’ with the film “Stars” by Federico Leon and Marcos Martinez. 17 January, 5.30 pm, Senate House, Room 349 (3rd floor)
The New Year starts with new faces at ISA and its three new stipendiary fellows: Dr Rosie Doyle Dr Ainhoa Montoya Dr Mattia Toaldo
Dr Rosie Doyle is working on the discourse of rights and political thought in Mexico in the long nineteenth century and beyond Dr Ainhoa Montoya, is working on transitions to democracy in El Salvador
New publication by Dr Debbie Toner following her work as main researcher at the Liberalism of the Americas. “Liberalismo y Religión: Secularización y Esfera Pública en las Américas (Londres, Reino Unido, 2012)”, REHMLAC: Revista de Estudios Históricos de la Masonería, 4:2 (Dec. 2012-Apr. 2013).
Obama’s foreign policy: Who
Dr Mattia Toaldo, works on US Foreign Policy and democratisation in the Arab world
ISA Associate Fellow Rachel Sieder Co-Edits Gender Justice and Legal Pluralities:Latin American and African Perspectives. The book is available with Routledge
needs democracy promotion when you’ve got democracy assistance? Dr. Matthew Hill will talk about US Foreing Policy at the next Dean’s Seminar. Room 246, Senate House 16 January 2013, 12:30 - 14:00
Enjoy ISA’s academic life by becoming a Visiting Fellow.
Check out our website for further details.
Institure for the Study of the Americas School of Advance Study University of London Senate House, Malet Street London WC1E 7HU americas@sas.ac.uk http://americas.sas.ac.uk/ +44 (0) 207 862 8870