Latin America Research Seminar

Research is the lifeblood of academia, just as evidence and analysis are the basis for sound policy decisions. Georgetown faculty, visiting researchers and fellows, and doctoral students whose work focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean engage in fascinating inquiry on an array of topics, in a myriad of contexts, using a diverse set of research methods. CLAS has established a Latin America Research Seminar (LARS) so that our community can learn about, celebrate, and promote their work.

LARS will meet twice a month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. (see schedule below). Lunch will be served.

We encourage Georgetown faculty, visiting researchers and fellows, and doctoral students whose work focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean to capitalize on this opportunity to share, and get multidisciplinary feedback on, their research.

If you are interested in presenting your ongoing or recently completed research in LARS, please email Diana Kapiszewski (dk784@georgetown.edu) indicating (1) the month in which you would like to present; (2) the topic of your presentation.

With regard to attending LARS, sessions are open to the entire university community, and to the public.

Upcoming Events:

November 29
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Calla (Cici) Cameron, PhD Candidate, Department of History
Title: Partido de Agua: An Examination of a Local Election in Rural Ayacucho, Peru
Abstract: This paper will analyze the social structures surrounding a mayoral election in rural Peru. An ethnographic and historical study of the community of Quinua, located outside of the city of Ayacucho, Peru will demonstrate the nuanced effects of language, ethnicity, tourism, collective memory, and familial ties have on modern, democratic elections. By accidentally becoming a figure within the election, the author demonstrates the omnipresence of the United States and Global North even in rural mayoral elections and the performative nature of Peruvian local elections.
Bio: Calla (Cici) Cameron is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of History. She received her Bachelor’s in History and Human Rights from Claremont McKenna College, and her MA in Global, International, and Comparative history from Georgetown University. She won a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Award, with which she conducted research in rural Ayacucho, Peru. Though her research currently focuses on the aftermath of the Peruvian Internal Armed Conflict (1980-2000) in rural areas, she is generally interested in post-conflict reconciliation and transitional justice across Latin America. Outside of academia, Calla manages a local bridal store and lives with her beloved rescue greyhound, Spaghetti.

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January 24
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Arturo Romero Yanez, PhD Candidate, Department of Economics
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Bio: TBD

February 14
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Jenny Guardado, Assistant Professor, Center for Latin American Studies
Title: TBD
Abstract: I analyze the impact of regressive taxation in colonial times on modern living disparities among indigenous populations in Peru. Exploiting geographic variations in tax implementation, I find that regions with highly regressive taxation in the past are presently poorer. However, this isn’t due to the current impoverishment of indigenous minorities in those areas. In fact, indigenous communities tend to have similar or improved access to public resources and better living conditions today in areas where these exactions took place than elsewhere. This pattern is not recent. Already in the 19th century communities subjected to these taxes had higher levels of literacy, collective action capability, and land ownership. I argue that these taxes led to socioeconomic sorting, with poorer and lower-status members bearing a greater tax burden during colonial times and responding by having fewer children, experiencing higher mortality rates, or migrating elsewhere. Surname patterns are consistent with this explanation: I find a higher prevalence of Inca nobility descendants in areas where colonial identity taxation was most burdensome. This suggests that indigenous elites were better able to remain in their communities, not suffer disproportionate losses, and (or) have higher fertility rates compared to commoners. These findings provide a different mechanism – sorting – for how the indigenous population faced Spanish colonization.
Bio: TBD

February 28
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Aned Ladino, PhD Candidate, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Bio: TBD

March 13
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Father Matthew Carnes, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Service / Department of Government
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Bio: TBD

March 27
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Simon Ballesteros, PhD Candidate, Department of Government
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Bio: TBD

April 10
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Anna Deeny Morales, Adjunct Professor, Center for Latin American Studies
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Bio: TBD

April 24
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Nayeli Riano, PhD Candidate, Department of Government
Title: TBD
Abstract: TBD
Bio: TBD

Previous Events:

October 11
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Luis Jácome, Adjunct Professor, Center for Latin American Studies
Title: The Long Road to Central Bank Independence in Latin America
Abstract: This presentation describes a new book that analyzes central bank independence in Latin America through the lens of history. It makes a historical account of how the independence of central banks evolved since the early 1920s, when the first central banks were created. Building on a novel database of an index of legal central bank independence for seventeen countries and a long series of inflation spanning 100 years, the book highlights that independence made a stark contribution to achieving price stability in a region historically battered with unparalleled levels of inflation. The analysis also takes into consideration how the international monetary system, the exchange rate regimes, and banking crises influenced the implementation of monetary policy and inflation performance. Against this backdrop, empirical evidence suggests that higher central bank independence is associated with a lower likelihood of high inflation episodes, especially when accompanied by restrictions to finance fiscal deficits.
Bio: Luis Jácome was Governor of the Central Bank of Ecuador in 1998-99 and previously Vice Minister of Finance. He was until recently the Deputy Chief of the Central Banking Division at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he worked for almost twenty years. During this time, Luis Jácome led missions to many countries around the world advising emerging markets’ central banks on monetary and macroprudential policies and on managing financial crises. He has published extensively, including in a number of peer-reviewed journals in English and Spanish, and is the co-author of the book Challenges for Central Banking: Perspectives from Latin America, published by the IMF in 2016. Luis Jácome holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University, a MSc in economics from the University of London, and a Licenciatura in economics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

October 25
Location: ICC 302-P
Presenter: Matias Spektor, Fellow, Georgetown Americas Institute
Title: Building the Latin American Transnational Surveillance Database (LATS)
Abstract: Transnational surveillance is a powerful tool in the arsenal of autocrats the world over. Despite its pervasive use in extraterritorial coercion, the study of surveillance of regime opponents beyond national borders remains underexplored in Political Science, primarily due to limited data availability. To help fill this gap, we constructed LATS, a micro-level dataset based on declassified foreign surveillance reports produced by autocratic Brazil over two decades (1966-1986). LATS records the identity, locations, social ties, and political activism of 17,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom congregated within and migrated across Latin America. Drawing on this abundant data, we empirically explore existing theoretical insights about the motivations, methods, and consequences of transnational surveillance, a task that would be difficult to do using other sources. We also leverage social network analysis to showcase potential applications of LATS in the testing of collective-action theories of transnational political violence as practiced by autocrats and their victims.
Bio: Matias Spektor, a resident fellow at Georgetown’s Americas Institute, is professor of Politics and International Relations at FGV in São Paulo (Brazil). He has published extensively on international security, political violence, and climate politics. Matias has held visiting professorships at Princeton, the LSE, and King’s College London, as well as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford.

November 8:   
Location: ICC 450
Presenter: Natalia Chávez Gomes da Silva, PhD Candidate, Deparment of Spanish and Portuguese
Title: “Almitas milagrosas” in Bolivia: Rites and Objects of Devotion as Portals of Hope for the People
Abstract: Five women murdered by different men in Bolivia between 1973 and 2003 have been iconized as popular saints (“almitas”) by the communities near the site of the tragedies: Mama Adela (Yotala, Chuquisaca), La Niña Patricia (La Paz city), Inocencia Flores (Oruro city) , Santa Cholita (San Benito, Cochabamba), and Shirley Quispe (Sipe Sipe, Cochabamba). Devotees go to their memorial sites – tombs, grottoes, and altars- to ask and thank them for miraculous help in difficult personal situations; they ask for health for mysterious, serious or chronic illnesses, they ask for success and protection in migration, they ask for fertility, work, repayment of debts, financial success, judiciary processes, family relations, envy and “mal de ojo”, among other things. This research uses Jill Dolan’s concept “performative utopias” to think about the revolutionary potential of cultural practices of faith that link the material world with a complex spiritual dimension that includes both Catholic values and Andean worldviews. “Performative utopias” address questions about the adaptation or reaction to postcolonial and postmodern social contexts in Bolivia. The observed practices are performances in the sense that they always happen in a public place and that they depend on a material expression of communication between the devotees and a holy figure. These expressions/acts can be: going to the place of the “almita” image(s), praying, lighting colored candles, leaving written letters and engraved metal plates, and inviting cigarettes, alcohol or coca leaves to the “santita”. Both the acting devotees and those who watch the acts end up being part of the devotional event that is perpetuated and maintained over time through ritual (practical) or oral communication of the practices and their motivations.
Bio: Natalia is a Ph.D. candidate in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University. She holds a BA in Communication (UPSA University, Bolivia) and an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish (New York University). Her main area of research interest is the narrative and material forms that shape Latin-American social categories (such as indigenous people, mestizxs, women, among others) in contemporary non-fiction literature and other cultural artifacts such as digital literature, performance, and mixed media. She is currently working on her dissertation titled: “The Gendered Expansion of History: Techniques and Materiality of Womanhood in Bolivian Undefined Expressive Artifacts.”

LARS Presenter Guidelines:

Presenters do not need to distribute anything written in advance, and there will be no dedicated discussant. Instead, LARS sessions will be structured in the following way:

For the first 20 minutes, presenters will discuss their research, offering answers to four guiding questions:
1. What is the research project/focus/question?
2. What date collection methods and data analysis methods do you use and why and how? What are your findings/results?
3. What are you teaching us?
4. What are the BIG PICTURE issues that your work takes on? Why does it matter?

For the last 30 minutes, we will open the floor for Q&A