CENTRE for LATIN AMERICAN
RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION

The Brazilian Elections of October 2026: Interpretations and Consequences for Brazil and the Wider Region

SPEAKERS: Edmund Amann, Leiden University; Kees Koonings, CEDLA – UvA; Nayara Macedo de Medeiros Albrecht, UvA

CHAIR: Barbara Hogenboom, CEDLA – UvA

DATE: Wednesday, 4 November 2026

TIME: 16:00–17:30

ACTIVITY: Roundtable

VENUE: Leiden University Faculty Club, Rapenburg 73, 2311 GJ Leiden

ORGANISATION: Hosted by Leiden University and co-organised by Leiden University and CEDLA – University of Amsterdam.

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The Brazilian elections this October will see contests for the presidency, the National Congress, state governors and state legislatures. Their outcomes will have a profound impact on Brazil’s economic, social and political development over the coming years.

The presidential race directly pits the left, under Lula, against a resurgent right headed by Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. At stake are not only Brazil’s domestic political direction but also its wider position in the region and the world, at a time when the United States is becoming increasingly engaged in developments across Latin America.

Bringing together scholars from Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam/CEDLA, this roundtable will examine the election results and discuss their political, economic and social consequences for Brazil and the wider region.

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PROGRAMME

• Welcome and overview
  Barbara Hogenboom, Chair
   

• The economic and social background
  Edmund Amann
   

• The politics behind the election result
  Kees Koonings 
   

• Longer-term political implications for Brazil and the wider region
  Nayara Macedo de Medeiros Albrecht 
   

• Public discussion
   

Drinks and snacks will be served following the event.

South-South migration, urban informality and transnational care: The migrant body and an embodied research approach    

SPEAKER:  Tanja Bastia, University of Manchester
DISCUSSANT: Paolo Boccagni, University of Trento
DATE: 6 November 2026
TIME: 15:30-17:00
​ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE
VENUE:  VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

​Tanja Bastia's lecture brings migration studies and urban informality into dialogue by showing how each has overlooked dimensions central to understanding contemporary urban life. It argues that migration research has often been constrained by methodological nationalism, while studies of urban informality have tended to treat migrants primarily as neighbours, overlooking how legal status, transnational ties, cultural practices, and mobility shape urban experiences. Drawing on recent research on transnational care, the lecture explores how migration reconfigures care for ageing parents across and beyond urban, rural, and peri-urban spaces. Finally, it proposes the migrant body as a unifying analytical lens to bridge disciplinary divides and illuminate the intersections of migration, care, embodiment, and urban transformation.    

Settling in the Self-built City
Newcommer Narrations in Photovoice

DATE: Friday, 6 November 2026

TIME: 17:00–18:15

ACTIVITY: Photovoice Exhibition Opening

VENUE: VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Tanja Bastia (15:30, preceding the exhibition opening)

ORGANISATION: Part of the closing symposium of the NWO-funded project Contesting Urban Borderscapes in Latin America and the CEDLA lecture series.
 

Settling in the Self-built City brings together photographs from Moravia in Medellín, Colombia, and La Carpio in San José, Costa Rica, two self-built neighbourhoods. The 18 featured photographers are recently arrived migrants: Venezuelans in Moravia and mostly Nicaraguans in La Carpio. Using photovoice, a method in which participants photograph their daily lives, they documented their experiences of finding a new home and settling in the community. The images show exploitation and unequal vulnerability, but also how they actively create a sense of belonging to the neighbourhood. Most photographs carry a QR code that lets visitors hear the photographer’s explanations in their own voices.

The opening follows the keynote lecture by Tanja Bastia (15:30, open to everyone), which is part of the closing symposium of the project and of the CEDLA lecture series. Please enter quietly if you arrive before 17:00. Cannot make it? No worries: afterwards, the exhibition moves to the corridors of CEDLA, where it will be on display for several weeks.

Film Screening Un Día Soleado: A documentary about a young woman’s fight against an 80-year political machine in Paraguay

DATE: Friday, 20 November 2026

TIME: 15:30 – 17:30

ACTIVITY: Film screening (1h25m), followed by a Q&A with director Pamela Kalkman

ORGANISATION: CEDLA and Humanities Venture Lab – University of Amsterdam
VENUE:  VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

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In the heart of South America, Un Día Soleado follows a woman vice-presidential candidate, Soledad Núñez, and her campaign team as they attempt to win Paraguay's 2023 election by breaking the conservative Colorado party's near-80-year grip on power. The intimate, observational documentary captures a young generation's struggle to hold on to their faith in democracy while confronting corruption, sexism, populism, and the ghosts of South America's longest dictatorship. The screening of the film will be followed by a Q&A with its director Pamela Kalkman, a Dutch-Paraguayan documentary maker, researcher and journalist.

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This film is supported by AFK - Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Amarte, Fonds Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten and Scenery.

Multispecies technical democracy: Earth observation and the rights of nature in Ecuador

SPEAKER:  Jorge Núñez Vega, UvA
DISCUSSANT: Karolien van Teijlingen, Radboud University
DATE: 4 December 2026
TIME: 15:30-17:00
​ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE
VENUE:  VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

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Since the 1970s, states and corporations have produced satellite images to map, manage, and exploit the environment. Earth observation, as this practice is called, has mostly been deployed in resource extraction, scanning the planet for minerals, petroleum, and natural gas. But in recent decades, this technology has been taken up by new hands for environmental justice and ecological reconstruction. In this talk, Jorge Núñez Vega analyzes the formation of a research collective concerned with the defense of the rights of nature in Ecuador, amid a government-declared internal armed conflict. The Earth Imagination Network brings together communities affected by contamination, remote sensing experts, environmental lawyers, and multimodal artists. Through collaborative satellite visualizations, this collective explores who can speak for nature in the realms of politics, economics, and ethics. Ultimatelly, what is at stake is the possibility of seeing Earth not only as a damaged environment in need of protection, but also as a living ecology with democratic voice.