CENTRE for LATIN AMERICAN
RESEARCH and DOCUMENTATION

Politics of the urban periphery: Rethinking resident-state relations beyond citizenship in Latin America

SPEAKER: Martijn Koster, Wageningen University

DISCUSSANT: Nanke Verloo, UvA

DATE: 20 September 2024

TIME: 15:30-17:00

ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE

VENUE: VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

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In recent decades, citizenship has become a key concept to define relationships between marginalised populations and the state. The ways in which residents of urban peripheries position themselves in relation to the state, are often conceptualised as non-standard, for example as incomplete, informal, vulnerable, insurgent, or contentious citizenship. While these residents are marginalised by the state, theorisations of their politics still centre upon the state and its social contract. However, this does not resonate with their experiences and understandings of their relationship with the state. Moreover, for many marginalised urban residents, the political language of citizenship does not offer a solution to their daily predicament. In effect, existing theories risk contributing to epistemic injustice. In this lecture Martijn Koster will reconceptualise periphery-state interactions from the vantage point of the periphery. He approaches the variety of interactions between marginalised residents and the state as a politics of the periphery, a diverse politics in its own right and on its own terms that emerges from local modes of agency. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Recife, Brazil, and new research in Cuba and Colombia, Martijn Koster will discuss emic political and moral notions and images to better understand residents' relationships with the state.

Opening drinks at CEDLA's new location

DATE: 20 September 2024

FROM: 17:00

ACTIVITY: OPENING DRINKS

VENUE: Binnengasthuisstraat 46, Amsterdam.

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CEDLA has opened its doors at Binnengasthuisstraat 46, Amsterdam. The building is called Gasthuiskerk, a church with a long history, although the building is no longer recognizable as such. It is centrally located in the University Quarter in Amsterdam, between the Allard Pierson Museum, VOX-POP and the new University Library (opening next summer).

On 20 September at 17:00, following the CEDLA lecture on ‘Politics of the urban periphery‘ by Martijn Koster in VOX-POP, we will cross the street for opening drinks at CEDLA. CEDLA’s entrance at Binnengasthuisstraat 46 is a bit hidden, but once you know the way it will be easy. 

Cinema and Culture in the Andes

DATE: 10 October 2024

TIME: 14.00-17.30, followed by drinks

ACTIVITY: CEDLA SEMINAR

VENUE: University of Amsterdam (exact location will follow)

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This seminar invites you to delve into South America’s Andean region through “small cinemas” that connect its contemporary cultures, social realities and histories. These are filmmaking processes that challenge hegemonic ways of producing and exhibiting films. This notion of small cinemas was first conceptualized in Europe to refer to films produced in regions and languages that have been historically marginalized in European national cinemas. In the South American context, it refers to audiovisual productions that are ignored by the national film industries, in countries that are sidelined by the larger film industries of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.  

These audiovisual practices and artisanal film texts are produced by diverse social actors, including feminist collectives (Ecuador), “non-professional” filmmakers reflecting on war and memory through horror and action films (Peru and Colombia) and experimental and amateur films that have been excluded from film history despite their great artistry (Ecuador). Despite their diversity, what they have in common is that all of them go beyond the idea of who can represent a nation, a culture, class, gender or ethnic group.  These audiovisual practices reveal different notions of identity and locality that are often absent in national and international imaginaries.  

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The invited scholars will present, view and analyze films that rarely reach European audiences, but that are widely consumed by people in the countries where they are produced. This seminar offers us an opportunity to expand on practices, aesthetics and notions of independent and alternative filmmaking, grounded in South American perspectives. 

Four South American academics will lead this seminar, based on their recently published book Small Cinemas of the Andes: New Aesthetics, Practices and Platforms (Palgrave, 2023). These are Diana Coryat, co-editor of the book and media practitioner and lecturer at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar; Libertad Gills, postdoctoral researcher for the Future of Cinema & the Audiovisual Arts at the Università della Svizzera Italiana; Diana Cuéllar-Ledesma, independent researcher and art curator; and Luisa González, PhD candidate at CEDLA and organizer of this seminar. 

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Upon registration through this form  you will receive the full seminar programme. The seminar will also be recorded and shared to CEDLA’s YouTube channel shortly afterwards. 

Are Truth and Justice Attainable in Times of Criminal Violence? Global Challenges and Lessons from Mexico and Colombia

SPEAKER: Mónica Serrano, Colegio de México

DISCUSSANT: Wil Pansters, Utrecht University

DATE: 18 October 2024

TIME: 15:30-17:00

ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE

VENUE: VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

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Recent surveys conducted in 18 countries across Latin America suggest that 13% of respondents—representing nearly 80 million people—acknowledged the role of local criminal groups in order-provision and crime control and/or reduction. Criminal governance, that is the imposition through consent and/or coercion of rules and restrictions by an armed criminal group over communities and civilians has long challenged state authority in both Mexico and Colombia and provided the context for serious human rights violations and atrocities.

Demobilization and reintegration processes in Colombia, first involving the paramilitary and subsequently insurgent forces have confronted victims, citizens, and authorities with thorny human rights dilemmas. While in Mexico, ten years of investigation around the Ayotzinapa case have highlighted the intractable difficulties facing atrocity investigations in contexts of political-criminal violence.

What are the prospects for truth and justice in contexts of criminal violence? Can truth and justice be reconciled in such contexts? To help answer these questions this presentation will assess and compare the experiences of transitional justice in contexts of criminal violence in Colombia and Mexico.

Latin American Indigenous Knowledge, Exoticism and Pharmacy in European Cultural Repertoires

SPEAKER: Fernando González Rodríguez, KU Leuven

DISCUSSANT: Tinde van Andel, Naturalis - Leiden University

DATE: 8 November 2024

TIME: 15:30-17:00

ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE

VENUE: VOX-POP, Binnengasthuisstraat 9, Amsterdam

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Ever since the encounter between the so-called Old and New Worlds, there has been an exchange of pharmacological knowledge across the Atlantic. Both materially and figuratively, the application of natural precursors native to the Americas have become part of the Western therapeutic landscape. ‘Exotic’ curative plants from far away places retain their place as a reference in contemporary cultural repertoires, but as I show, in the process, important contributions of medicinal Indigenous expertise to modern science have been overlooked. Focusing on the linguistic and visual aspect of pharmacological epistemic transfers across time, I ask: Whose nature and knowledge is it?

Carceral Worlds Book Launch (online)

SPEAKER: various contributors

DISCUSSANTS: Andrew Jefferson (DIGNITY - Danish Institute Against Torture) and Dominique Moran (Birmingham University)

DATE: 22 November 2024

TIME: 12.00-14.00 CET

ACTIVITY: BOOK PRESENTATION

VENUE: Online

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On Friday 22 November from 12.00-14.00 CET we are celebrating the launch of Carceral Worlds: Legacies, Textures, Futures (2024, Bloomsbury Academic). The volume is co-edited by CEDLA colleague Julienne Weegels and includes chapters on Brazil, Guyana, Chile and Nicaragua.

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Please complete your registration for the event here, to receive the Zoom link ahead of the event. We will be sending you this link a few days before the event, as well as on the day of the event itself.

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