ENFOQUE The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Indiana UniversityA US Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center

1125 East Atwater Avenue Bloomington, IN 47401 812.855.9097 clacs@indiana.edu www.indiana.edu/~clacs

INSIDEthis issue

2 Letter from the Director

3 ATLILLA/STLILLA

4 ATLILLA/STLILLA, cont.

5 The IU Inga Project

6 CLACS Photo Contest

7 CLACS Photo Contest, cont.

8 Fernando Nilo and Recycla

9 Dain Borges

10 Creole Choir of Cuba

11 Law School Workshop

12 Jhon Antón Sánchez and Carlos de la Torre

13 CLACS Exchange Students

14 Grant and FLAS recipients

15 Community Outreach

16 CLACS Green Team

fall 2011 NEWSLETTER

Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth Cooke

A Message From the Director

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¡Que tal trabajaso huevón! Así diría cual-quier de mis amigos subtes en Lima. Actually, that’s kinda what I said to myself when I real-ized the size and scope of the job I took on by deciding to step into the CLACS directorship this year. Outwardly excited about the oppor-tunity to help shape an already well running center; secretly anxious at the idea of living up to the rather high standards already estab-lished by my predecessors. But that’s also la parte chévere. I have only good models to fol-low and only great people to surround myself with in the process.

In this respect, I’m deeply thankful for having inherited a two-time, free-standing Title VI center boldly pursuing the idea that IU is a place where some of the most provocative Latin American scholarship, education, and outreach anywhere are taking place. For that we all have to thank Jeffrey Gould and Andrea Siqiuera, succeeded by Bradley Levinson and Matt Van Hoose, for their amazing leadership in recent years and for placing CLACS square-ly on the area studies map of global educa-tion efforts. None of this would be ni siquiera pensable without the dedication of our local administrative personnel, language instructors, graduate students and many affiliated fac-ulty. Ricardo Valdez, CLACS’ finance-guru, is always at least three steps ahead of the game (and has an array of killer keyboard shortcuts you never even imagined!). Following the re-cent departure of Bill Tilghman, we are thrilled to welcome Sarah Bosk into the position of CLACS Academic Secretary (bienvenido de nuevo Sarah!). As a center also centrally dedicated to the mission of teaching less com-monly taught languages we’d be sin palabra without the specialized knowledge and skills of our various language experts: Quetzil Casta-ñeda; David Tezil; and Francisco Tandioy. At

the heart of it all are year-after-year cohorts of top-knotch graduate students, several of whom contribute directly to CLACS as GAs, and the many affiliated faculty who contribute in small and large ways to the life and vitality of the Center’s many activities. Finally, and frankly speaking, I think I’d just be more or less jodido without Matt Van Hoose – for both his orga-nizational wizardry and abilities to offset my reputation for less-than-subtle language.

As we go to press with this first edition of the 2011-2012 CLACS newsletter I still find myself very much in the liminal stage – cooking up a few ideas for the future and still feeling humbled by the large learning curve associ-ated with administering such a wide array of programs and activities. Right now everyone is the better boss than me. But when I think about it I kinda like it that way. By this I mean simply that one of my goals as director will be to maintain as horizontal a form of leadership as possible, contributing to a generally infor-mal and communal CLACS ethos, but keep up…uhh…or step up my game, as the case requires, when it comes to setting a vision for and maintaining a sense of accountability to our multiple constituencies. Challenges al-ways abound, even more so in the context of a general socio-economic crisis with implications in and beyond the academy. But without them the job really would also be in certain ways im-mediately less rewarding. A trabajar entonces...

Shane Greene

Saludo del Director

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THE ASSOCIATION FOR TEACHING AND LEARNINGINDIGENOUS LANGUAGES OF LATIN AMERICA (ATLILLA)

SYMPOSIUM ON TEACHING AND LEARNING INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES OF LATIN AMERICA (STLILLA)

The first Symposium on Teaching Indigenous Languages of Latin America (STILLA 2008) was held from August 14-16, 2008, at Indiana University Bloomington, organized by the Minority Languages and Cultures of Latin America Program (MLCP) and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS). That gathering, arguably the first of its kind worldwide, led to the August 2008 foundation of the Association for Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of Latin America (ATLILLA), based at Indiana University Bloomington. As an international nonprofit organization, ATLILLA brings together instructors, practitioners, activists, indigenous leaders, scholars, and learners from around the globe and from a wide range of disciplines and occupational endeavors, all devoted to the teaching and learning of indigenous languages and cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean. ATLILLA is dedicated to the improvement of teaching, learning and research related to indigenous languages and cultures of Latin America, both within the United States and internationally. The association also engages actively with the promotion, revitalization, documentation, and maintenance of the region’s indigenous languages and cultures. We embrace an open-door policy that permits individuals and institutions with similar interests to join in our efforts. Our ultimate vision is that the work we create and share through the new ATLILLA association and the biennial STLILLA symposium (see page 15 for more details) will transcend academy walls and find space in the larger world community by giving all participants an opening to share their words and worlds in their own voices. As ATLILLA’s international membership continues to expand, the organization’s growth will be guided by its Executive Council: Serafín M. Coronel-Molina, President (Indiana University, Bloomington); Nancy H. Hornberger, Vice-President (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia); and Jean-Jacques Decoster, Secretary (Centro Tinku, Cuzco, Peru). From among several major developments over the past year, the members of the Council are particularly pleased to announce the launch of the new ATLILLA website: www.iu.edu/~atlilla. Please visit us soon and stay tuned for the addition of new content as site development continues! One of ATLILLA’s hallmark projects occurred for the first time in 2008 in Bloomington, and was titled the Symposium on Teaching Indigenous Languages of Latin America (STILLA). We are delighted to announce that the tri-lingual proceedings of that inaugural event are now available for free electronic download via the websites of ATLILLA and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (www.iu.edu/~clacs). We extend our sincere thanks to all the contributing authors and to the many individuals whose help made this publication possible; and in keeping with ATLILLA’s mission, we encourage colleagues and allied institutions to circulate the proceedings freely to potentially interested parties. For 2011, the Symposium was re-named to emphasize the importance of language learning, and is now known as STLILLA – the Symposium on Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of Latin America. This second major ATLILLA gathering was hosted by the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, from October 30-November 2, 2011, through active coordination and collaboration with ATLILLA. The event brought together instructors, practitioners, activists, indigenous leaders, scholars and learners of indigenous languages from around the world to discuss issues of research and pedagogy. The distinguished keynote speakers were: Demetrio Cojtí Cuxil, Alan Durston, Graciela Huinao, Bruce Mannheim, Camilla Townsend and Sebastián van Doesburg.

Continued on the Next Page

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ATLILLA and STLILLA continued

STLILLA 2011 (http://kellogg.nd.edu/projects/quechua/STLILLA/) engaged participants in a hemispheric dialogue and also served as a forum for networking and exchanging ideas, experiences and research on pedagogical, methodological, and practical issues from cross-disciplinary perspectives. Active listening and discussion enabled professionals from around the world to interact with leading experts in the fields of education, language policy and planning, theoretical linguistics, Latin American studies, applied linguistics, anthropology, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, history, and informatics. Through multiple venues such as keynotes addresses, special panels, interactive workshops, roundtable discussions, poster sessions, and technological tools showcases, the symposium contributed to the teaching, learning, dissemination, maintenance, and revitalization of indigenous languages and cultures of the region. Planning is now underway for STLILLA 2013, and the ATLILLA Executive Council will recommend which of the co-sponsors or partner institutions should take this responsibility. For now, we extend our sincere thanks to Notre Dame’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies for its extraordinary organizational efforts, and to all the partners and sponsors whose support made STLILLA 2011 such a success.

STLILLA 2011 Organizers & PartnersAssociation for Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of Latin America (ATLILLA)National Science Foundation, Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) ProgramFord Foundation-Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Special ProjectsConsortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP)

Units at the University of Notre DameCenter for the Study of Languages and CulturesDepartment of Romance Languages and Literatures Helen Kellogg Institute for International StudiesInstitute for Latino StudiesInstitute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts (ISLA)Office of ResearchOffice of the Vice President and Associate Provost for InternationalizationThe Worldview Initiative, Office of the President, University of Notre Dame

University SponsorsIndiana University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) Indiana University Department of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education (LCLE), School of Education The Ohio State University, Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) San Diego State University, Center for Latin American Studies (CILAS) Tulane University, Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies (TUCLA) University of Chicago, Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) University of Florida, Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) University of Pittsburgh, Center for Latin American StudiesUniversity of Wisconsin, Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies ProgramVanderbilt University, Center for Latin American Studies

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IU Inga Project - Inga Rimangapa

IU Inga Project Inga is the northernmost variety of the great Quechua family of South American languages, and Indiana University continues to be the exclusive North American setting for instruction and research into the Inga language and culture. The IU Inga project, staffed by Inga cultural activist and language instructor Francisco Tandioy Jansasoy, faculty sponsor John McDowell, and the talented group of Tandioy’s advanced students, has been active of late and has a number of important current activities to report.The Inga Pedagogy We are pleased to announce initial publication of Inga Rimangapa Samuichi: Speaking the Quechua of Colombia, co-authored by John McDowell, Francisco Tandioy, and Juan Eduardo Wolf. This 315-page instructional textbook is composed of 21 lessons, each intended to encompass one semester of instruction. It features vocabulary lists, dialogues, grammar points, exercises, and extended texts, all interspersed with photographs of Inga people, places and drawings by Inga artists. A key attraction of the book is its lively presentation of Inga culture, featuring both traditional and contemporary cultural elements. This version of the pedagogy is addressed to our English-speaking students; a Spanish-language version is in preparation, to be shared with the Inga community and Spanish-speaking students throughout Latin America. Also in preparation is an audio companion to the textbook, with spoken examples coordinated to the written materials.The Inga Resource Center Coming out of the collaboration between Tandioy and McDowell over the years, and benefitting from the involvement of generations of Inga students, the IU Inga Project now has an impressive inventory of Inga cultural resources, and we have decided to create a website to make samples of these materials available to a global audience. With the help of Folklore and Ethnomusicology doctoral student Eric Morales, we are creating the Inga Resource Center website to house these samples and expect it to go online before the end of 2011.

The STLILLA Conference In 2008 the Inga group participated in STILLA, the Symposium on Teaching Indigenous Languages of Latin America, sponsored by IU and coordinated by Serafín Coronel-Molina in the School of Education and John McDowell of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. This year, in late October and early November, Notre Dame hosted the sequel, STLILLA, the Symposium on Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Once again, the Inga group contributed a panel, titled The Indiana University Inga Resource Center: A Work in Progress, where we were able to share with educators and researchers from around the world our plans for the Inga Resource Center. Our panel featured three presentations, with Juan Eduardo Wolf serving as discussant:

Tara Zahler and Francisco Tandioy - “The Pedagogical Application of Authentic Materials”

Bryan Rupert - “Spanning the Gap: Challenges and Adaptive Strategies for Dealing with the Effects of Distance in the Development of Inga Language Materials”

John McDowell - “Conceptualizing an Inga Reader: From Story Spoken to Story Read”

Attending STLILLA and presenting our papers was a great opportunity to get better acquainted with each other’s research, to showcase our plans for the Inga Resource Center, and to assimilate ideas from other scholars and activists in the area of indigenous languages of Latin America.

The IU Inga Project Team

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2011 CLACS Photo Contest: Photo Contest Winners

Dan Suslak: The churchyard in Totontepec, Mixe in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. It’s a typical rainy morning in August. Young musicians visiting from the Mixe town of Ayutla are getting ready for a Catholic mass in honor of María de la Asunción while an elderly Totontepecano man looks on.

Jennifer Boles: The photo is an image taken at the Gay Pride Parade in Mexico City in 2010, the same year that the city legalized gay marriage and adoption for gay couples. In the background is the Angel of Independence, a monument built in the early twentieth century to commemorate the cen-tennial of Mexico’s independence. The Angel is a key landmark in the city, a central meeting point for events such as Gay Pride, for nationalist celebra-tions, and of course, for protests.

Kevin Coleman: On July 5, 2009 hundreds of thousands of demonstrators waited outside the main airport in Tegucigalpa for deposed Presi-dent Manuel Zelaya to return. But the Honduran military shut down the airport and blocked the runway so that his plane could not land. This photograph was taken moments after soldiers fired on their fellow citizens, taking the life of nineteen-year-old Isis Obed Murillo Mencías. After the military shot Isis Obed Murillo Mencías, this man immediately began to memorialize his death. By putting his hands in the puddle of blood that had drained from young Isis’s head, this man was attempting to ensure that those who had just taken his life could not also take away the memory that people had of him and of his violently unjust death.

We are delighted to announce the winners of this year’s CLACS Photo Contest.

We recieved many photos of fantastic variety and quality. Here is a a brief de-scription of the photos that were selected and the context in which they were captured.

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2011 CLACS Photo Contest:Photos receiving Honorable Mention

Catherine Tucker: In February 2003 I was walking past a coffee depulp-ing mill (beneficio) after a day interviewing coffee producers. It was the height of the harvest, and coffee pickers were lined up to measure the coffee they had picked that day. To one side, I saw a group of young coffee pickers, who I knew from the village, eagerly awaiting their turn to measure their cof-fee. They agreed to let me take their photo, and after several snaps, they sat still just long enough for the camera to catch their expressions.

We would like to thank all participants in this year’s photo contest.

With your continued support and participation we look forward to making the contest a CLACS tradition.

Elizabeth Cooke: This photo was taken in September 2008 after a series of hurricanes had inundated Gonaives, Haiti. Elizabeth Cooke took the photo from the roof of a school, hoping to capture a moment of beauty in the midst of the devasta-tion.

Eduardo Brondizio: The ‘cross-road’ of rivers, forests, and city, the ‘Ver-o-Peso’ market in Belem, Para, Brazil is known for its cornucopia of fish, forest fruits, and medicines. The ‘curandeiros and ben-zedeiras’ of Ver-o-Peso are known for their rich ethnobotanical knowledge and powerful prays that cure the males of the body and the heart. The market is arguably the main cultural marker of the city of Belem.

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FERNANDO NILO, FOUNDER OF CHILE’S 1ST RECYCLING COMPANY, VISITS IU

Environmental activism is building across Latin America. In February, a court in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay $18.2 billion for damage done to the Amazon rainforest during oil exploration. Brazil, too, is threatening legal action against

Chevron for illegal off-shore activities. In Chile, activists have successfully stalled the construction of the Hidroaysén Dam in Southern Patagonia. This September, IU received a visit from Fernando Nilo, a Chilean social en-trepreneur taking a unique approach to environmental concerns. Nilo’s company, RECYCLA Chile, employs the “triple bot-tom line” model in an effort to bring together sustainable business practices, social justice, and profitability. RECYCLA col-lects and dismantles electronic waste from computers, cell phones, printers, and other technological devices before shipping them to Europe for processing and recycling. The business model facilitates the reinte-gration of adjudicated persons into Chilean society by reserving 40% of its workforce for recently paroled prisoners and inmates participating in work release programs. Nilo does not see himself as an environmental activist, but rather as a social entrepreneur working to create sustainable and market-based solutions to the world’s intractable problems. RECYCLA has garnered significant international attention in recent years. In November, RECYCLA finished second

place in the BBC World Challenge, an online voting competition for the world’s best sustainable business. The past three presidents of Chile have visited the RECY-CLA plant, including governments of both the right and left. In 2007, the Schwab Foundation awarded Fernando Nilo the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award. In this same year, the Chilean National Devel-opment Corporation, the principal economic planning agency within the government, awarded Nilo the Businessman of the Year award. In addition in 2009, the World Eco-nomic Forum nominated Nilo as a Technol-ogy Pioneer. Fernando Nilo’s visit was made possible by a unique collaboration between CLACS and the Kelley Institute for Social Impact. During the past year, CLACS has sponsored numerous activities related to environmental concerns in Latin America through its Sustainable Development Initia-tive, a project created under the rubric of CLACS’ second Title VI National Resource Center grant. The Kelley School of Busi-ness hopes to continue partnering with Nilo to create innovative study abroad and in-ternship programs in Chile. In March, 2011, students of the Kelley School’s Emerging Economies course, taught by CLACS GA Michael Lemon, visited the offices and plant of RECYCLA Chile, a visit that will occur again in March 2012.

Photo: Fernando Nilo

DAIN BORGES PRESENTS AT THE LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH FORUM

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CLACS had the pleasure of hosting Professor Dain Borges on October 21 for a talk titled From Bonfire to Ashes: The Victory and Dispersion of Brazilian Abolitionism, 1884-1894. The lecture was part of our Latin American Research Forum, a series that coincides with the Introduction to Latin American Studies seminar for CLACS M.A. and Ph.D. students. Borges joined us from the University of Chicago where he is Associate Professor of History and former Director of the U. Chicago Center for Latin American Studies. In his talk, Borges took a revisionist eye to a period spanning from the height of the abolitionist movement (culminating with final abolition in 1888) through to Gilberto Freyre’s landmark work of 1933, The Masters and the Slaves. Borges reminded his audience that Freyre attended graduate school at Columbia University, and was consequently influenced by Franz Boas’s argument that culture, not race, defined societies. Grounding himself in that view, Freyre argued that all classes in Brazil were marked indelibly by the system of slavery and “colonial plantation patriarchalism.” Given the centrality that Freyre afforded the institution of slavery as a structuring force in Brazilian society, one might expect to find a straight line of sorts – i.e. a consistent emphasis on slavery – extending from the abolitionist writers of the 1880’s to the Freyre-inspired sociology that emerged in the Brazil of the 1930’s. Indeed, Borges himself admitted to assuming such continuity during much of his career as a historian of early Brazilian nationhood. Upon closer inspection, however, Borges argued that a lacuna becomes evident. Case in point: the first anniversaries of the May 13 Golden Law were met with only “reluctant” observance by the nascent republican regime. From that point onward, Borges argued, prominent politicians and intellectuals of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Brazil left the

issue of slavery, and the ongoing need for structural reforms to remediate its effects, virtually untouched, until Freyre emerged as a dominant voice in national discussions. One case that illustrates well the silence that emerged around the slavery issue in post-abolition Brazil is that of Joaquim Nabuco. Borges traced Nabuco’s career from his “eloquent tract” of 1883, Abolitionism, through to Nabuco’s later political career in the republican period, during which he eventually would serve as the Brazilian ambassador to the U.S. As a public intellectual, Nabuco himself grew increasingly silent on issues of race and slavery in the years following abolition – a fact can clearly be correlated, to some extent, with his position as a representative of Brazil in the exterior, but that may also point toward a certain conservatism in Nabuco’s own abolitionist thinking. Nabuco’s social and economic concerns regarding slavery, that is, may have been largely addressed by the structural fact of abolition itself, making the institution’s aftermath less of a pressing concern for him. Ultimately, Borges did not leave his audience with a mono-causal explanation for this period of silence in the first decades following Brazilian abolition. Rather, by illustrating the period so richly, he posed a series of broader questions about the place of slavery in Brazilian national thought – questions that proved highly engaging for all in attendance, and that will no doubt inspire important contributions to the already-rich historiography of these issues.

Photo: Dain Borges

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This September, Bloomington residents enjoyed a special visit from the Creole Choir of Cuba, a 10-person choral group from Camagüey, Cuba. After two headlining performances at the renowned Lotus World Music and Arts Festival, the Creole Choir rounded out its visit with two CLACS-sponsored events. Students in the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Afro-Cuban Ensemble sat down to an informal master class with the Choir, exchanging rhythms and sharing musical styles. One student in the Afro-Cuban Ensemble, Charlie Jesseph, wrote of the experience: “The choir performed a tune and then taught us three different songs, including the dances, vocals, and percussion parts. Everyone was up on their feet and the energy was through the roof. It is rare that college students get the opportunity to connect with a group like this and sing and dance to such uplifting music.” The Creole Choir of Cuba continued its artistic trek through Bloomington with a stop at the Monroe County Public Library, conducting a musical demonstration and question and answer session about the Choir’s musical influences and Cuban and Haitian culture, history, music, and art. Choir Director Emilia Díaz Chávez discussed how, as descendants of Haitian migrants to Cuba, the group members have nurtured music passed down in their families since the early 19th century, gradually adding modern Haitian sounds as the group matured together. The group performed five songs, including a gripping lament about an orphaned Haitian child. The music was raw and exposed, as the Choir forewent the use of drums for the intimate performance, in sharp juxtaposition with the previous night’s electrifying collaboration. The emotion of each singer’s voice resonated clearly, channeling the pain of the group’s Haitian ancestors, while offering a sense of hope. Over 100 people filled the MCPL auditorium for the event, asking questions about the group’s history, Haitian ancestry, language, and musical styles. Translator Francisca Morón graciously offered her simultaneous translation skills to facilitate the Spanish-English question-answer exchange. CLACS is grateful for the Creole Choir of Cuba’s participation in these two exceptional events.

Creole Chior of Cuba Takes Bloomington by Storm

On September 23, 2011, CLACS, in collaboration with CIBER, the Center for the Study of Global Change, and African Studies, sponsored a workshop at the Maurer School of Law on Communities, Resource Extraction and Conflict. Natural resource extraction is often lauded for its potential to help countries and communities meet their development goals. It has also been frequently associated with large-scale environmental and human rights harms, corruption, and the “resource curse.” In order to increase the likelihood that resource extraction projects will redound to the benefit of local populations, international institutions, corporations, and non-governmental organizations have adopted Free Prior Informed Consultation/Consent (FPIC) as an evolving strategy to address the human rights implications of natural resource extraction and other commercial activity, particularly in developing countries. While FPIC holds great potential to ensure that local communities and countries benefit from resource extraction projects, it rests on several assumptions that must be addressed. For example, a useful FPIC process must assure that communities have a genuine ability to shape or reject the project; that consultations or consent processes are inclusive of informed, empowered parties; that the information on which community decisions are made is non-biased, accurate and complete; that communities have a sufficient degree of legal literacy and political sophistication to make informed assessments and forecast potential problems; and that the consultation and consent processes are legitimate and adequately representative of the affected communities. Each of these assumptions has been controverted in practice, resulting in questions about how to alter the FPIC

mechanism so that it can better meet its intended objectives. This workshop addressed many of these questions. At the same time as FPIC has emerged, so have other legal and non-law-based ex-ante, or pre-extraction strategies that are designed to empower communities encountering resource extraction projects, and protect them from bearing a disproportionate share of the externalized costs of these projects. These include coordination with international organizations; improvement of domestic constitutional, legislative, contractual and judicial avenues to create protective law and jurisprudence; information dissemination through electronic, social, and traditional media; and political activism and protest. The workshop explored each of these strategies in isolation, and as they combine with each other, and with FPIC processes, both in practice and in theory. The workshop participants, which included academics and practitioners whose work is focused on Latin America, Africa, Asia and the United States, also discussed the many types of extraction project-related conflict that have arisen in the geographic regions with which they are most familiar in order attempt to discern patterns of convergence and divergence among these regions. Published essays related to the themes of the workshop are forthcoming in electronic and paper form. This workshop was the first in a series of events that will be sponsored by CLACS, the Maurer School of Law and other participating Indiana University National Resource Centers in connection with the Indiana University Project on Global Law, Business & Human Rights. For more information, contact the Project Director, Christiana Ochoa at cochoa@indiana.edu.

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Workshop with Maurer School of Law : Communities, Resource Extraction and Conflict

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Jhon Antón Sánchez and Carlos de la Torre

Jhón Antón Sánchez holds the title of Docente Investigador in the Escuela de Consti-tucionalismo y Derecho of Ecuador’s Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales. He is also an active affiliate of FLACSO-Ecuador, the former academic home of Dr. Carlos de la Torre, who now serves as Professor of Sociology and Di-rector of International Studies at the University of Kentucky. Antón and de la Torre are among the most incisive and influential scholars work-ing today on issues of race and ethnicity in con-temporary Ecuador, and under the auspices of the Minority Languages and Cultures Program (MLCP), both visited the IU-Bloomington cam-pus in late November to deliver a mini-collo-quium titled Estado Plurinacional, Derechos Afrodescendientes, y Desigualdad Racial en Ecuador. This Spanish-language event, held on November 30, 2011, enjoyed robust and en-gaged attendance even as the Bloomington campus moved into the frenetic final weeks of the Fall 2011 semester. Antón is a native of Colombia but after having moved to Quito to pursue doctoral work at FLACSO-Ecuador in Anthropology he decided to focus his work on the struggles of Afro-Ecuadorians for po-litical and cultural recognition. This makes him an important voice in an emerging field of study about the on-going political aims and long racial histories of Afro-descendants in the Latin American region. In his talk he identified several important highlights. One of the most notable findings of his work is the truly sys-tematic, measurable, and documented forms of systemic racism to which Afro-Ecuadorians are subjected, disproportionate to other popula-tions. He also discussed in detail the on-going attempts to redefine Latin American nationhood, focus-ing on the regional trend to move away from older “mes-tizaje” based models of nation and towards one based on multicultural citizenship. The emergence of multiculturalism

in Latin America - particularly in a country like Ecuador which ratified one of the more progres-sive constitutional reforms in the late 1990s – raises the question of pluri-nationalism. This concept, which Antón addressed squarely, promises to be both a source of potential politi-cal leverage for subaltern populations (indige-nous and Afro-descendant) in terms of potential political and cultural recognition. Yet, it is also perceived as a possible “threat” to state gov-ernments charged with the task of reconciling a politics of cultural recognition with the restraints on group autonomy that statehood historically implies. To this excellent discussion of his work, Carlos de la Torre responded with equally engaged comments. De la Torre of course knows Antón’s work well and used the oppor-tunity to provide his own long-term perspective on Ecuador’s populist politics and social move-ments. He went into particular detail about the ways in which Rafael Correa’s current govern-ment, ostensibly aiming to implement social reforms, in many ways continues in the tradition of populist pandering without fully addressing the actual demands of social movements, like that of Afro-Ecuadorians. Finally, the dialogue between Antón and de la Torre marks the emergence of a greater space for comparative thinking in CLACS Mi-nority Languages and Cultures Program. The MLCP has traditionally been and will continue to be a place from which CLACS faculty and students examine issues related to the current state of indigenous languages, cultural expres-sion, and identity politics. In fact, Antón’s pre-sentation on Afro-Ecuadorian reality took Ecua-dor’s indigenous populations as a direct point of comparison. Our hope then is that the MLCP

will continue in this direction of encouraging further compara-tive debate about the contem-porary struggles and everyday realities of the region’s largest, if also most historically subor-dinated, ethnic minorities.

Julio Cesar Hoil Gutierrez is a Ph.D. student in History at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. He spent the Fall semester at IU through an exchange program between CIESAS and Indiana University. Hoil studies Mexico’s agrarian history and peasant culture. His research centers on analyzing agricultural processes in the Yucatán during the second half of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has participated in a number of meetings organized by the Society for American Archaeology and has publicized articles detailing his research. Before beginning his studies in History, Julio earned an undergraduate degree in archaeology, with research experience at Dzibilchaltun, Chichén Itzá, and other Mayan sites on the Yucatán Peninsula. He is a native speaker of Yucatec Maya, and he has written several short stories in the Maya language that have won prizes

in major indigenous-language literature competitions. Hoil has also developed applied writing projects for students in rural communities. Hoil’s current research documents long-term cultural and social processes in Maya communities through a focus on continuities and changes in everyday material culture from the pre-Hispanic to the postcolonial period. Julio expressed that being a visiting scholar at Indiana University was crucial for broadening his research perspective. His academic experience at IU, and in particular the guidance of Professor Peter Guardino, has been fundamental to propelling the direction of his project. In addition he was glad to have the opportunity to make contact and gain support from academics at Indiana University who share his interests. Hoil stated that this is an advantage to any researcher; it shows that IU is a university that goes beyond its own borders, in both it policies and its academic pursuits.

CIESAS EXCHANGE: Julio Cesar Hoil Gutierrez

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UCR Exchange: Francisco Robles

Francisco Robles Rivera, a visiting scholar from the University of Costa Rica, spent September 2011 at IU through an exchange program with the University of Costa Rica. During his month at IU, Robles studied with esteemed CLACS-affiliated faculty and completed an independent research project. Francisco Robles Rivera is a researcher at both the Latin American Studies Institute at the National University (Costa Rica) and at the Social Studies Institute at the University of Costa Rica. He researches neoliberalism in Central Amierca and the United States, and specifically the impact of CAFTA in Costa Rica and El Salvador. Robles attended History professor Jeffrey Gould’s seminar on Revolution and Counterrevolution in Latin America and Law professor Christiana Ochoa’s Law and International Development course. His experience at IU allowed him to enrich his research through a combination of conversations, library work, and lectures.

Francisco shared some of his conclusions after studying at IU, which we wanted to pass on to the CLACS community: If you think about neoliberalism, Latin America emerges as the historical laboratory of it. This political, ideological, and economic project was implemented in the 70´s in Latin America, first through dictatorships (Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Videla in Argentina, military rulers in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Central America), but later it was also implemented in “times of democracy” through the new agenda of the Washington Consensus in the 90´s. A lot of literature has been written about the impact of neoliberalism in Latin America, but we have not studied the consequences of it at “home.” In that sense, the main objective of my trip to Bloomington as a visiting scholar last September was to think and address my research about the lack of an “alternative project” to confront neoliberalism, and the social and economic consequences in the United States.

Studying Neoliberalism from a Neoliberal Laboratory

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Madeline Chera “Investigating Local Food Economies in Stann Creek District, Belize”

Sarah Dees “Bad Medicine: Native Religions through Imperial Eyes”

Amy Miller Gray “Indigenous Agency in Negotiating Tourism Impacts in Kuna Yala, Panama”

Michael Lemon “The Work of Art in the Age of Revolution: Television, Technology, and Popular Power in Allende’s Chile”

Kathryn Nold “Survey of Regional Patterns in Taíno Ceramics from Four Archaeological Sites in Southeastern Dominican Republic”

Teresa Parmer “Transatlantic Mysticism and Colonial Identities”

Francisco Ramos “Contextualizing Policy, Situating Identity: Intercultural Universities in Veracruz, Mexico”

Margaret Remstad “The Role of Nongovernmental Actors in Implementing Transformative Human Rights Education in Peru”

Jessica Rivers “Church and Leisure in Urban Brazil”

Juan Sebastian Rojas “Bullerengue Festivals of the Colombian Atlantic Coast in the Frame of Multicul-turalism: The Construction of Regional Ethnic Identities Through Traditional Music and Dance”

Timo Shaefer “Army Recruitment and State-Formation in Post-Independence Mexico, 1821-1862”

Lyra Spang “Cultural Capital and Intermediary Entrepreneurship in Belize”

Danny Thiemann “Regional Mechanisms for Peace and Conflict Resolution”

Recipients of the 2011 Summer Field Research Grants

FLAS Recipients

CLACS awarded FLAS fellowship grants to support graduate study of modern foreign languages and related area and international studies. Listed below are the names of the recipients, their departments, and their languages of study.

Thanks to generous support from the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Public and Environ-mental Affairs, CLACS awarded Summer Field Research Grants to fund graduate student research across

Latin America and the Caribbean. Listed below are the recipients’ names and the titles of their projects.

Sarah Dees Religious Studies Quechua

Stephen Fafulas Spanish and Portuguese PortugueseRobert Moses Fritz Spanish and Portuguese PortugueseElizabeth Herring Spanish and Portuguese GuaraníSonia Manriquez Latin American and Caribbean Studies Quechua

Alison Pitt Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Public and Environmental Affairs

Haitian Creole

Bryan Rupert Anthropology Quichua

Elizabeth Cooke Public and Environmental Affairs Haitian CreoleMarcie Deffenbaugh Latin American and Caribbean Studies/

Library and Information ScienceQuechua

Jesse Hatcher Public and Environmental Affairs PortugueseKaeleigh Herstad Anthropology Yucatec Maya

FLAS Recipients for Summer 2011

FLAS Recipients for the Academic Year

2011-2012

ENFOQUE - 15

CLACS IN THE COMMUNITY

The Latin American Research Forum is an annual interdisciplinary lecture series led by recognized IU professors and distinguished visitors. We would like to extend our thanks to our speakers from the FALL 2011 semester.

Below is a list of our most recent speakers:

Luis Gonzalez - (IU Wells Library)Anke Birkenmaier - (IU Spanish and Portuguese)

Shane Greene - (IU Anthropology)Geoff Conrad - (IU Anthropology)

Dennis Conway - (IU Geography) Dain Borges - (U. Chicago)

Rinku Roy Chowdhury - (IU Geography) Manuel Díaz-Campos - (IU Spanish and Portuguese)

Jason McGraw - (IU History) Eden Medina - (IU School of Informatics)

Micol Seigel - (IU American Studies & AAADS)

Please follow our website for a post about next Fall’s forum schedule.

Our lectures are open to students, faculty and friends.

LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH FORUM

Engagement in the Bloomington community is a central part of the CLACS mission. Every year

CLACS attends the Bloomington Multicultural Expo and Fiesta del Otoño held at Bryan Park and the Farmer’s Market. These events provide opportu-ities to engage with the local community and cel-ebrate the diversity of Bloomington. During these festive moments we like to extend an invitation to the public to join us in upcoming CLACS spon-

sored events, musical performances and lectures. Please visit us at our next community event!

CLACS table at the Multicultural Expo

Bloomington Dance Troupe Baila! Baila!

Latin American “Geo Genuises” at the

Multicultural Expo

CLACS GA John Kroondyk at Fiesta del Otoño

CLACS GA Alison Pitt at Fiesta del Otoño

ENFOQUE - 16

Photo of Jeffrey L. Gould and Carlos Henríquez Consalvi

The CLACS Green team was formed earlier this year with the aim reducing our environmental impact and making CLACS a more sustainable center. The CLACS Team is a part of the Sustainable Development Initiative, which is funded through the Title VI National Resource Center grant from the US Department of Education. We are proud to announce that our Green Team has earned seed and sprout certification. As a department we are committed to sustainability and will continue to make our office a center for sustainable practices here at IU Bloomington.

Photo: Michael Lemon, Sonia Manriquez, Richard Valdez, Matthew Van Hoose, Shane Greene, Alison Pitt, John Kroondyk and Rachel Dotson

The Center for Latin American

and Caribbean Studies at Indiana University

Staff

L. Shane GreeneDirector

Matthew J. Van HooseAssociate Director

Richard ValdezAdministrative Secretary

Sarah BoskAcademic Secretary

Graduate Assistants

Alison Pitt Michael Lemon

Sonia Manriquez John KroondykRachel Dotson

Please help support CLACS today!

Your support provides that added measure of funding to help maintain and enhance the quality of education we provide. Gifts are tax-deductible as allowed by law.

Name: _________________________________________

Email: _________________________________________

Mailing Address: ________________________________

______________________________________________

Enclosed, please find my contribution in the amount of:

□ $500 □ $250 □ $100 □ $50 □ Other ___________

Donations made out to “Indiana University Foundation” may

be mailed to:Center for Latin American and Caribbean StudiesIndiana University1125 E. Atwater Ave.Bloomington, IN 47401

Online donations may be made with a credit card via the CLACS website at www.indiana.edu/~clacs.

Attention Alumni! Please send us updates on your activities to share in our next edition of Enfoque. Email us at clacs@indiana.edu.

The Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Indiana University

1125 E. Atwater Ave.Bloomington, IN 47401

Phone 812.855.9097Fax 812.855.5345

Email: clacs@indiana.eduVisit: www.indiana.edu/~clacs

THE CLACS GREEN TEAM