Ph.D. Research Workshop on Latin America

Ph.D. Research Workshop on Latin America

Citizenship and governance at the margins of the state:

Latin America between post-conflict and neo-populism

September 2-5, 2008

Graduate School of International Development Studies,

Roskilde University

Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims

Copenhagen

Participants: Open to all PhD-students. Maximum number of participants 25

Organizers: Fiona Wilson and Henrik Rønsbo

Venue: Hotel Søfryd, Jyllinge, near Roskilde, Denmark

ETCS: 7 points

Speakers invited

-  Evelina Dagnino, University of Campinas, Brazil

-  Kimberley Theidon, Harvard University, US

-  Javier Monroe, Centro Bartolomé de las Casas, Cusco, Peru

-  Charles Hale, University of Texas, US

-  Jenny Pearce, Institute for Peace Research, University of Bradford, UK

Background

Over the last decade the political map of Latin America has been changing rapidly. Where civil wars and authoritarian regimes once dominated we have seen candidates from ‘the left’ being voted into power. All over the continent one finds a resurgence of established left-wing political parties with Lula in Brazil, Bachelet in Chile, Garcia in Peru, and Ortega in Nicaragua together with the rise of more radical populist leaders such as Chavez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia and most lately Correa in Ecuador.

According to some commentators (e.g. NACLA,[1]), this move to the left is because people in the Americas now understand the relationship between their poverty and subordination and the penetration of local and national governments by the neo-liberal imperative. Instead, democracy is being built ‘from below’ more strongly than by state action, argues Avritzer[2], as shown by movements mobilizing for human rights and against impunity in Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala, for a more egalitarian distribution of resources in Brazil, and against electoral fraud in Mexico. Also, quite significant and unprecedented indigenous movements have emerged in Central America, Mexico and the Andes demanding state recognition of multicultural citizenship.[3]

Through these different processes, the exercise of citizenship and participation in parliamentary and presidential politics became central in the vocabulary of popular movements from the late 1980’s onwards. Embedded in a human rights discourse, the notion of national citizenship - albeit renegotiated in terms of language and culture - has remained prominent as a galvanizing idea in political society and seen to lie at the heart of struggles against genocides as well as social and economic exclusion, and widening the conception and practice of ‘the political’.[4]

However, a critical look at political tendencies from the point of view of governance suggests a more complex, less triumphalist, picture. Most importantly we can point to the continuation, even expansion, of organized political and economic violence within Latin American societies, making Latin America the most violent continent on earth. This points to a decreasing ability of states to control violence, and continued fragility of the legal sector despite more than ten years of sustained efforts at structural reform, suggesting that despite being ‘post’-conflict, societies can never leave violence behind.

In other political spaces we see the reproduction of authoritarian tendencies (sometimes under the guise of neo-populism) in society as well as in state institutions; as in intensified state presence as a result of (so-called) decentralization, municipalization and land reform policies; and entrenched racism and social exclusion (notwithstanding the recognition of indigenous rights). Furthermore, gains made in the past may be in danger of reversal, through the undermining and de-railing of social and political movements and co-optation of the political language of contestation.

Currently, as Dagnino[5] argues, concepts of ‘citizenship’ and ‘participation’ are being appropriated and re-defined through their entanglement with global neo-liberal discourse which is limiting their political scope and creating new associations with the market place. This transformation of keywords, in turn, is indicative of the spread of a new mode of governance in which global (more specifically US) discourses, interests and agendas are making in-roads (despite national political moves ‘to the left’) and are being brought to bear on states and societies.

While framing the overall debate, the aim of this Ph.D. researcher course is to leave national-regional political frameworks and move beyond simple binaries that arise when juxtaposing ‘citizenship’ and ‘governance’ and distinguishing processes as ‘old’ or ‘new’, or as leading to ‘continuity’ or ‘change’. Instead the researcher course will focus on the analysis of political subjectivities, mentalities, relations and engagements and the unfolding of political processes when seen from vantage points ‘in the margins of the state’.[6] This brings to the fore questions relating to the scale and scope of theory and methodology, and the need to draw upon and build bridges among different disciplinary traditions, political science, anthropology, geography and history. Through what lenses and analytical frames can we best approach and make sense of ‘local-level’ politics; how can we take a non-centrist, maybe provincial or marginal, view; how can we see the wood from the trees?

Objectives of the workshop

This Ph.D. researcher course aims to train participants in analyzing questions and appraise different approaches to the study of local-level politics in the margins of the state. Not only is Latin America the geographic focus, we also hope to discuss and reflect on current debates which emanate from Latin America. However, the course is first and foremost a pedagogical exercise. This will be underlined by asking the invited speakers at plenary meetings to reflect on and open up to scrutiny how they chose their concepts, theories and methodology and what makes these appropriate to their scale/level of analysis; how they determined which questions were central to their investigation and how they set about analyzing them. This form of enquiry will carry over into ‘workshop’ sessions where participants have the opportunity to present their work and receive detailed comments.

Workshop organization

The working language will be English, though some papers may be given in Spanish. We shall strive to generate an atmosphere of open, frank, productive debate. The workshop will be structured around three elements:

1.  Plenary sessions where 5 invited speakers are given sufficient time to present papers and have them discussed.

2.  ‘Workshop’ sessions where Ph.D. papers are presented. An abstract is requested at the time of application; a month before the course, each participant is expected to submit a short written paper (of max. 10 pages) which will form the basis of the workshop presentation. Two discussants will be allocated to each paper, one will be a fellow Ph.D. participant and the other an invited speaker or resource person.

3.  The organizers will select some 6-8 classic texts which will be distributed as a compendium. Participants (in small groups) will be asked to prepare and make a short presentation of the main ideas and arguments of each text.

Time plan

September 2 Arrival + ½ day workshop

September 3 Workshop

September 4 Workshop

September 5 ½ day workshop + departure

Requirements

The course is open to all Ph.D. students who are working on research in (or highly relevant to) Latin America. There will be a maximum of 25 students. Application for the course is to be sent to by May 1, 2008, including an abstract for the PhD-paper of a maximum of 500 words. Participants will be selected on the basis of their abstract, as themes are expected to relate to the overall theme of this workshop. Notice of acceptance will be sent by May 15, 2008. Deadline for the PhD-paper, of a maximum of 6000 words, is June 23, 2008. The paper is to be sent to the same address, together with a half to one page description of one’s research project.

Fee

Fee for the participation in the workshop is 300 Euro, payable after the notice of acceptance. This includes food, and accommodation for three nights. The fee is not refundable.

Credits

Participation in the workshop earns the student 7 ECTS points.

1

[1] Vol 40, Issue 1, 2007.

[2] Leonardo Avritzer, 2002, Democracy and the public space in Latin America, Princeton.

[3] Deborah Yashar, 2005, Contesting citizenship in Latin America: the rise of indigenous movements and the postliberal challenge, Cambridge.

[4] Evalina Dagnino, 2005, Meanings of citizenship in Latin America, Institute of Development Studies, Working Paper 258, November.

[5] ibid

[6] Veena Das and Deborah Poole, 2004, Anthropology in the margins of the state, Santa Fé and Oxford.