Conference: “Citizenship and collective subjectivities in the Americas”
Newcastle Institute for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (NIASSH)
Newcastle University Americas Research Group (ARG) Postgraduate Series
Venue: Bamburgh Room (B) and Alnwick Room (A), Kings Road Centre; Newcastle University,
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Date: Thursday, 17th March 2011 (12-6 pm)
Programme:
12:00 - 12:30
Registration (Room A)
12:30 - 1:15
Welcome and Keynote (Room B)
Keynote speaker: Prof. Jenny Pearce
Professor of Latin American Politics
Director of International Centre for Participation Studies
University of Bradford
1:15 - 2:00
Lunch (Room B)
2:00 - 3:20
Panel 1: Civil society and socio-political change (Room B)
3:20 - 3:50
Tea/coffee break (Room B)
3:50 – 4:40
Panel 2: Culture, subjectivities and territory (Room A)
4:40 - 5:40
Panel 3: State violence and citizens rights (Room A)
5:40 - 6:00
Plenary Discussion and Close (Room A)
6:00 -
Drinks in N. Stage bar/lounge
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Programme for panels:
2:00 - 3:20
Panel 1: Civil society and socio-political change
Chair: Prof. Nina D. Laurie
2:00-2:20
Anaïd Flesken: Bolivia’s New Regional Autonomy Movement: A Case of ‘Ethnic’
Mobilization?
2:20-2:40
Adam Baird: Forgotten Heroes? Civil Society Activism Amidst Violence &
Pioneering Youth Policy in Medellín
2:40-3:00
Juan Pablo Ferrero: New Democratic Subjectivities in South America: From
democratic regimes to democratic politics? Reflections on Argentina and Brazil
3:00-3:20
Discussion
3:20 - 3:50
Tea/Coffee Break
3:50 - 4:40
Panel 2: Culture, subjectivities and territory
Chair: Dr. Patricia Oliart
3:50-4:20
Lisa Costello: Beyond Borders: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead
4:20-4:40
.Discussion
4:40-5:40
Panel 3: State violence and citizens rights
Chair: Prof. Jens Hentschke
4:40 -5:00
Andrew Burridge: Migrant rights and humanitarian aid in southern Arizona: a case
study of Operation Streamline
5:00-5:20
Elizabeth Kerr: Living in the Shadow of the State: Displaced People’s Struggle for
Citizenship
5:20-5:40
Discussion
5:40 - 6:00
Plenary Discussion
Chair: Prof. Jenny Pearce
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Keynote
Prof. Jenny Pearce
Professor of Latin American Politics
Director of International Centre for Participation Studies
University of Bradford
Profile: http://www.brad.ac.uk/peace/staff/academic/ProfessorJennyPearce/
E-mail: j.v.pearce@Bradford.ac.uk
Beyond Rousseau and Montesquieu: The Quest for a Latin American Democratic
Subjectivity
The post Cold War transition to democracy offered a very limited horizon for imagining the possible
futures of Latin America. The region was still trapped in its Eurocentric political framework which
since the Independence struggles had counterposed the collective subject of Rousseau to the
liberal subject of Montesquieu. Neither left nor right were able to offer a pathway to inclusive
democratisation under these imported theoretical frameworks. While these two streams of
European political thought continue to haunt the region, over the last decade or so, new modes of
thinking about state and society have emerged out of the region's own socio-political experiences
as well as hitherto subordinated socio political actors. This paper asks whether these constitute the
source of a unique Latin American contribution to theorising democracy and political agency and
ultimately transforming the meanings of 'modernity' and 'development'. At the same time, it asks
whether this potential source of democratic renewal is sustainable against the ongoing efforts from
old and new elites to perpetuate violent, unequal and neoliberal social orders in the region.
Panellists - Abstracts and contact information
Bolivia’s New Regional Autonomy Movement: A Case of ‘Ethnic’ Mobilization?
Anaïd Flesken
PhD Candidate
Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies
University of Exeter
a.flesken@exeter.ac.uk
Over the past decade, Bolivia has experienced upheavals in the social as well as political sphere.
While the emergence of the indigenous movement and its political breakthrough with the election
of Evo Morales as president in 2005 has been monitored closely, much less attention has been
paid to the evolving regional autonomy movements by the traditional elites in the East of the
country, the so‐called media luna departments Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, and Tarija. Governments
and social movements of these departments oppose the nationalization of the country’s natural
resources – of which the largest share is located in their departments – as well as indigenous
autonomy, as this, they argue, would lead to a de facto discrimination of non‐indigenous Bolivians.
This paper presents an overview of the emergence and evolution of the regional autonomy
movement in the media luna, and especially Santa Cruz, focusing on the discursive practices used
by the regional elites. These point to the construction of regional identities that are increasingly
contrasted with Andean indigenous identity and thus implicitly, or even explicitly, racist. The paper
considers how this elite discourse might manifest itself in political and social dimensions,
potentially amplifying the salience of ethnic boundaries in Bolivia. Further, it problematizes how
data collection and analysis could be designed in order to be able to assess whether and how
ethnic boundaries have changed.
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Forgotten Heroes? Civil
Policy in Medellín
Society Activism
Amidst
Violence & Pioneering Youth
Dr. Adam Baird
Peace Studies Department
University of Bradford
A.D.S.Baird@Bradford.ac.uk
The violence that erupted in Medellín in the late 1980s provoked a number of responses from the
state and numerous civil society organisations. Indeed, the 1990s saw what could best be
described as a boom in civil society activism and initiatives in response to this violence. One
response of the state concerned punitive securitisation. The police, army and paramilitaries were
deployed in the most violent precincts of the city. Scholars, particularly international observers,
have a tendency to reduce violence analysis to the armed actors belligerent in these processes,
frequently citing the repressive role of the state, criticising ‘traditional politics’ and the role
neoliberal expansionism plays in exacerbating inequalities; more recently there has been a focus
on the shortcomings of the paramilitary demobilisation process. Whilst such analyses help us
unpack the dynamics of violence in Medellín and in particular the abuses committed under the
state’s securitisation doctrine, these understandings obfuscate the successes of civil society and
state led municipal youth work. This paper draws on original interviews conducted for my PhD in
2008 with a number of pioneering individuals from civil society and state institutions in Medellín,
Colombia.
New Democratic Subjectivities in South America: From democratic regimes to democratic
politics? Reflections on Argentina and Brazil
Juan Pablo Ferrero
PhD Candidate
Social and Policy Sciences
University of Bath – UK
Jpf22@bath.ac.uk
The enduring presence of non-institutional forms of collective action alongside traditional ones has
opened a space to revisit and challenge dominant ideas on democracy in South America. By using
data from two case studies from Argentina and Brazil (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem
Terra- Central Única dos Trabalhadores and Federacion de Tierra Vivienda y Habitat-Central de
Trabajadores Argentinos respectively) I analyse their dynamic in relation to historical (re)definition
of democratic boundaries in the light of what Jacques Ranciėre calls ‘disagreement’. By
characterising the emerging features and dynamic of new democratic subjectivities (NDS), this
research aims to learn how NDS displace given boundaries of democracy and what it is their
contribution to the process of democratisation. The research shows that the relationship between
NDS’s features (organisation, alliances & networks, and demands) and their underlying dynamic
(practice of translation) results in the emergence of two contentious spaces (‘real policies’ and
‘imagined politics’). The materialisation of the latter is visible through tensions underpinning a)
Public Policies, b) Institutional crystallisations and c) legitimising discourses. I argue that
disagreement is ‘interpreted’ across a, b and c resulting into new forms of institutionalised dissent
(for instance, ‘participatory democracy’, ‘democratic governance’, etc.). As a result of this, the
dimension of imagined politics is lost in translation. The research concludes firstly that the study of
NDS has been largely neglected by the dominant transition tradition enforcing rather than
questioning existing ‘democratic boundaries’. Secondly, understanding the scope, meanings and
effects of NDS is critical to perceive the drivers for socio-political change in South America. Finally,
in order to fully grasp the latter, the research shows that social movement theory and radical
democracy approaches have both become essential theoretical element to move the democracy
debate away from ‘bad translation’ and closer ‘good listener’.
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Beyond Borders: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead
Lisa Costello
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University College Cork
helenacostello@gmail.com
The landscape of the American Southwest has long been inhabited by a diverse range of cultures.
Since the age of colonisation, this region has become a highly contested space, where Anglo,
Hispanic and Indian cultures vie for prominence and survival. The study of this geographic region
as a cultural borderland is now an emerging paradigm in academic studies. The prolonged
interaction of diverse races has resulted in the formation of a unique cultural identity which is
represented by the literature of the region. Recent work in the area of border studies has focused
attention on the geographic parameters of the Southwest calling into question not only its
characterisation as an American region, but also the emerging collective identity of its population.
As a Southwestern writer and mixed blood Indian, Leslie Marmon Silko inhabits the liminal spaces
of the Southwest borderlands, an area that Gloria Anzaldúa refers to as an “open wound” where,
over time, various races have merged to form a hybrid culture exhibiting a unique collective
identity. As such, Silko is part of a hybrid race which inhabits the transcultural frontier of the
Southwest borderlands. The formation and expression of this unique cultural allegiance is
particularly evident in Silko’s writing. Many of the characters in her novels exist on the periphery of
cultures, thus exhibiting a dual allegiance. In particular, Silko’s novel Almanac of the Dead is set in
the lived reality of the borderlands and offers an insiders perspective on the territorial, ideological
and cultural borders of the American Southwest. In considering Silko’s writing, this paper proposes
to analyse the tensions inherent in a contemporary Southwestern identity and in doing so, examine
how this Native writer challenges the dominant paradigm of the American Southwest as a fixed
cultural landscape.
Migrant rights and humanitarian aid in southern Arizona: a case study of Operation
Streamline
Dr. Andrew Burridge
International Boundaries Research Unit
University of Durham
Andrew.Burridge@durham.ac.uk
On 14 January 2008, Operation Streamline was put in to effect in the Tucson Sector of the MexicoU.S. borderlands. This program, aimed at the mass incarceration of undocumented migrants, has
been most rigorously applied here, known as the busiest and deadliest corridor for migration.
Everyday approximately 70 persons are apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol and then
sentenced for up to 180 days imprisonment. Though this daily process of incarceration can be
seen within the courtroom, along with its clear ties to the growing Prison Industrial Complex, I am
interested in how such policies impact undocumented persons' health and wellbeing during their
migration journey on foot through harsh terrain, such as the Sonoran desert, while further
criminalizing their presence, individually and collectively within the United States.
I consider Streamline and its impacts on migrants through the lens of local organizing, particularly
through ethnographic work conducted with humanitarian aid groups that advocate for migrant
rights. I assert that such policies - which further militarize the border, reduce mobility, and justify
criminalization of migrants in the public eye - put bodies and lives at greater risk, even before they
are prosecuted, enhancing the rigors of crossing international boundaries. Further, I argue that
although such policies are aimed at deterring future crossings, they also hinder the work of
humanitarian aid, undoubtedly adding to the abuses and deaths of undocumented persons, while
furthering the precarious position that migrants find themselves within. This specific case study is
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also set within the wider anti-immigration climate currently witnessed within the state of Arizona,
and the ongoing attacks upon those without citizenship status and non-white residents.
Living in the Shadow of the State: Displaced People’s Struggle for Citizenship
Elizabeth Kerr
PhD Candidate
Peace Studies Department
University of Bradford
e.kerr@bradford.ac.uk
The forced displacement of over four million people in Colombia demonstrates that despite the
formal establishment of citizenship rights, full citizenship understood as political, economic, social
and cultural rights is an ideal far from being realised. This paper reflects on how the subject of
‘desplazado’ and ‘desplazada’ (‘displaced’) has been constructed in Colombia and what
implications this has had on how these victims of the civil and political violence are perceived by
the State. This paper will subsequently examine how this category is strategically employed in the
struggle to gain access to rights by both those working on displacement as well as by those
individuals who have been forced to flee their homes due to Colombia’s prolonged violent conflict.
The paper will refer to fieldwork carried out in the department of Antioquia as part of a PhD
research project on Forced Displacement and Citizenship in Colombia at the University of
Bradford’s Peace Studies Department.
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