The Norwegian Association of Latin America Studies (NALAS), in collaboration with the University of South-Eastern Norway, invites scholars from Norway, the Nordic countries, and the rest of the world from a broad range of disciplines and theoretical perspectives to present proposals for individual papers for the 2nd NALAS Conference.

Venue: Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge, Campus Drammen

Date: 15-16 June 2023
 

The title of the conference, “Islands, Borders, Archipelagos”, places a non-exclusive emphasis on the Caribbean region and particularly Cuba. It was the Martinican thinker Édouard Glissant who coined the term archipelago as an image for thinking about forms of cultural interaction that do not suppress particularities. We propose the terms islands, borders, and archipelagos as analytical tools to approach the Caribbean and Latin American context, which is marked by widespread crisis and uncertainty, and a strong tension between neo-fundamentalisms, cultural and political reinscriptions, and the centrifugal force of globalization.

From this initial trigger, we wish to rethink the meaning of islands and borders in Latin America and the Caribbean. We use these categories in both literal terms (Cuba, the Malvinas Islands, Hispaniola, Chiloé, Tierra del Fuego and the borders that, for example, segment the original Gran Colombia or separate Latin America from the USA) as well as in metaphorical and abstract terms. That is, as identitarian islands, archipelagos of changing identities, and linguistic, social, and contested borders of identity politics. In this double dimension, the terms allow us to explore, from different disciplines and methodologies, heterogeneous aspects such as:

• Linguistic forms that demarcate political and/or cultural domains as well as contact varieties such as Portuñol or Spanglish.
• Islands and urban borders, which may include poverty ghettos as well as their opposite, gated communities.
• Ethnoscapes or cultural and economic enclaves.
• Migrations involving transits between specific domains (countries, regions, Latin America-USA) thought of as islands always intercommunicated as archipelagos.
• Identities (gender, national, ethnic, class, religious, etc.) that involve borders, but at the same time displacements or transits and coalitions.
• Literary, linguistic, and cultural translation as a way of creating archipelagos.
• Non-acculturating fusions or transculturations.
• Political transformations, such as those occurring in Chile, Colombia, or Brazil, which presuppose national specificity, but at the same time interactions and trends on a regional and/or an international scale.
• The sea as an ecosystem, also in its legal status and as a means of transit between islands. 
• Historical perspectives on islands, borders, and archipelagos.

All presentations will be in person. The panels will be organized in parallel sessions. Papers dealing with issues related to Cuba and the Caribbean region are particularly welcome and will be grouped in specific panels. 

Although we have chosen the title “Islands, borders, archipelagos” as focus for the plenary sessions at the congress, any proposal related to Latin America research is also welcome.

Deadline to submit proposals: February 15th, 2023.

Please check the list of accepted panels on our website and mention in the proposal the panel that would best match the proposed paper.

Paper proposals should include:

• the title

• a short abstract of max 250 words

• presenter’s full name

• email address(es)

• The presentations should be in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. The proposal should be written in the language to be used by the panel.

 

The conveners would be in charge of organizing the panels before the congress.

The proposals should be submitted to nalas2023@nalas.org by February 15th 2023.

 

Fees

NALAS Members: 750 NOK

NALAS student members: 100 NOK

Non-members from Europe and USA: 1500 NOK

Non-member students: 500 NOK

Scholars based in Latin America, Africa, and Asia: Free

 

 

Organizing committee

Jorge J. Locane, Hans Jacob Ohldieck, Ole Jacob Løland, Guro Nore Fløgstad, Yuri Kasahara, Alissa Vik, Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik, Jørgen Sørlie Yri, Vegard Bye, Fabian Mosenson, Astrid B. Stensrud

 

Keynote speakers

Florencia Garramuño

After one of the most turbulent elections in recent history, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a third mandate defeating the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by the narrowest margin ever registered. Brazil seems to come out of the elections as a more divided and polarized country than ever. This webinar discussed what happened during the Brazilian elections and what to expect from the new government.
Recorded on December 7, 2022.

Speakers: 

• Marcus Melo is a Full Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil. He is an expert in Brazilian politics and Executive-Legislative relations. 
  
• Solveig Aamodt is a Senior Researcher at the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Norway. Her work focuses on environmental policy in Brazil and its role in international climate negotiations. 
  
• Diego W. Arguelhes is an Associated Professor of Law at Insper in Brazil. He has written extensively on the role of the Supreme Court in Brazil and its effects on Brazilian politics. 
  

The webinar was  chaired by Yuri Kasahara (OsloMet).

These are the 19 panels selected: 

1. Archipelagic Poetics of Mobility in Contemporary Caribbean Artistic Production.

2. Archipelagic Pasts and Futures. Rethinking Ruins.

3. Changing religious identities across denominational borders and societal spheres.
4. Cruzando las fronteras del conocimiento: diálogos de saberes desde la teoría a la práctica.
   
5. Cuba's shifting frontiers - local, transnational, and digital dimensions of borders in an Island nation.
   
6. De las revistas a la web 2.0: cruces entre cultura, política e imaginarios sociales en Cuba.
   
7. Destino Caribe: escritura de viajes y representaciones del otro.
   
8. El Caribe como tema y los temas de la literatura del Caribe.
   
9. El problema humanitario de la migración en América Latina.
   
10. Hispaniola 2023: global and transnational connections to an insular crisis.
    
11. Interconexiones lingüísticas e identidades.
12. Legacies of violence in ‘post-conflict’ Colombia.
    
13. Perspectives on the Amazon governance across disciplines.
    
14. Popular Music and Political Polarization in Contemporary Brazil.
    
15. Relaciones transnacionales e interculturales en la literatura cubana.
16. Religion and Politics in Brazil in the age of intolerance.
    
17. Tiempo y temporalidad. Herramientas y evidencias de la construcción de fronteras espaciales.
    
18. Utopian and Dystopian Discourses in the Anglophone Caribbean.
    
19. Which options exist for a solution of the present Cuban crisis?

NALAS invites all for the webinar

Brazil after the elections: what did happen and what to expect?

Date: 07.12.22 - 2:00 - 3:30 pm (CET)

Language: English.

Please register to receive the link for the event here.

After one of the most turbulent elections in recent history, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a third mandate defeating the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by the narrowest margin ever registered. Brazil seems to come out of the elections as a more divided and polarized country than ever. This webinar will discuss what happened during the Brazilian elections and what can we expect from the new government.  

Speakers: 

·      Marcus Melo is a Full Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil. He is an expert in Brazilian politics and Executive-Legislative relations.

·      Solveig Aamodt is a Senior Researcher at the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Norway. Her work focuses on environmental policy in Brazil and its role in international climate negotiations.

·      Diego W. Arguelhes is an Associated Professor of Law at Insper in Brazil. He has written extensively on the role of the Supreme Court in Brazil and its effects on Brazilian politics.

The webinar will be chaired by Yuri Kasahara (OsloMet).  

Please register to receive the link for the event here.

 

Dear colleagues, please make sure to check out this call for papers from NTNU, for their forthcoming conference in May 2023: Redes II Literatura y activismo en Latinoamérica, organized with the University of Oslo and the University of Gothenburg.