Abya Yala in Flux:
Change, Resistance Movements, and Trans*formations
ILASSA Conference Program Here!
In a moment of many climatic, cultural, economic, political, and social trans*formations, what is the role we are called to assume as scholars of Latin America and the Caribbean? We recognize the ongoing consequences of the pandemic in Abya Yala, the human and social losses of which have revealed new forms of exploitation favoring political-economic elites, especially in the Global North. Alongside this prominent constellation of bionecropolitical forces in the region, we highlight the sustained resistance that positioned leaders in the political arena, such as the first leftist presidents in Colombia and Chile, and the return of the left in Argentina and Brazil. Likewise, the significant increase in trans, black, indigenous, and feminist people elected to public office across Latin America stands out. How can we contextualize this in the historical struggles of indigenous and black peoples, feminist, trans, and peasant struggles, among others, against States and their transnational necropolitical relations? Faced with this mobilization against the machinery of death in the region, we ask ourselves, how can we contribute to these trans*formative struggles in solidarity with activists and community leaders whose bodies and territories continue to be violated as spaces of dispute by the policies of racial neoliberalism?
About the Conference:
The in-person event will be held at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS)
2300 Red River St, Austin, Texas
April 6-7th, 2023
The online event will be held on the Zoom Platform
April 6-7th, 2023
Rooms and links will be provided in the week of the conference
This is a free event from the LLILAS Graduate students to Latin Americanists students from all Abya Yala.
This year we are happy to announce Dr. Ochy Curiel as Keynote Speaker.
Ochy Curiel is an Afro-Dominican lesbian, feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, singer, and scholar-activist. She is one of the founding leaders in the contemporary Afrolatinx feminist movement in Latin America. She currently teaches at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where she leads the program on Gender Studies. She maintains that lesbianism is a political position rather than a sexual preference or orientation. Ochy Curiel is part of Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudio, Formación y Acción Feminista (GLEFAS, Latin-American group of study, formation, and feminist action) founded by Afro Dominican feminist activist Yuderkys Espinosa Miñoso in 2007.
ILASSA Conference Program is here!