June 17th, 15:00 – 17:00 /18:00 – 20:00 (CEST)
Chair: Mariano Féliz (La Plata), Henrike Neuhaus (London)
In the context of the financialisation of housing and everyday life, mortgages and indebtedness have become a key component of the process of capital accumulation in the late neoliberalism. Recent studies have addressed the role of debt as power relation, marketisation of housing rights or domestication of finance, among others, mainly in the global north. This article examines the idea of debt through the lens of relational poverty in the context of financialisation in emerging capitalist economies, and how housing movements are resisting and organizing against its outcomes. A mixed methodology is carried out through data collected from both national financial surveys and in-depth interviews with representatives of three housing movements from Chile. A deductive thematic analysis shows three aspect of these ‘debt systems’: how different forms of debt interplay, merge and form a peripheral debt system; how gender and racial inequalities arises from these relations; and how collective action and solidarity replace individual responses and emerges to contest the different forms of violence, exploitation and domination. Authors calls for more grounded and intersectional analysis of debt in the context of financialisation of housing and everyday life, to examine marginalized groups and heterogeneous types of indebtedness in the periphery, and to trace further connections and comparisons with other housing movements across the world to explore a potential indebted multitude.
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June 18th, 14:00 – 16:00 CEST
Chair: Daniel S. Leon
Latin America was at the center of the “Third Wave” of democracy in the late 20th century, but some countries have seen experienced backsliding of their democracies while others have experienced positive progress. This panel does not assume disruptions of democracies as a synonym for democratic backsliding in line with the conceptualization of “disruptions” proposed by the 3rd Latin American Transitions conference. Disruptions of democracy as experienced in Venezuela or Nicaragua are indeed examples of democratic backsliding. However, other disruptions such as the protests in Chile and the subsequent constitutional assembly or the responses by different branches of government to the lava jato corruption scandal and the erratic Bolsonaro administration in Brazil may show how disruptions may strengthen Latin American democracies. This panel brings together experts working in Central America, Brazil, and Venezuela to discuss the different facets of democratic disruptions in the region.
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June 18th, 15:00 – 17:00 CEST
Chair: Karen Silva Torres
Since the well-known Arab Spring, social media platforms have been at the center of the discussion about political activism, demonstrations, and protest culture. More optimistic analysis highlighted the democratic technological affordances of platforms like Twitter, as a space where counterhegemonic stories can be told. After almost a decade, the global discussion has turned to big data, algorithms, trolling and surveillance. Either to evoke solidarity and social change or to promote abusive exchanges and hate speech, affectivities are inherent part of the digital experience.
The panel proposes a comparative discussion about the role of social media platforms, considered as affective publics, in moments of disruption in Latin America and Europe. In 2019, while political protests shook Chile, Ecuador, and Bolivia, thousands of people demonstrated and riot in Barcelona against the sentence given to Catalonia independence leaders. While a migrant caravan crosses Central America and asylum seekers are stopped at the European borders, many xenophobic protests emerge in both continents. Throughout all these moments, social media has been important for disputing the meaning and character of these disruptions. Shared images and affective discourses circulating under the social media logic connected activists, journalists, politicians producing narratives of support, as well as of polarization. By presenting similar research done in different countries of both continents, we expect to discuss: what similarities can we found across the Atlantic? Are our theoretical tools transnational enough to be used in different contexts and places? How much different are affective publics and disruptive moments in both regions?
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June 18th, 16:15 – 18:15 (CEST)
Chair: Stefan Peters (Giessen) / Discussant: Solveig Richter (Leipzig)
The peace agreement between the Colombian government and the rebel group FARC-EP was widely perceived as a milestone and a starting point for a comprehensive peace process in the country that would both enhance the democratic legitimacy of the country and drastically reduce violence. However, despite the high political importance of social inequality in Latin America and notably in Colombia, the academic debate has so far only to a limited extent analyzed this dimension. Rather, the focus in Colombia and beyond is mostly on studies in violence (violentología), transitional justice, DDR and / or territorial transformation. Thus, the submitted panel seeks to deepen the discussion on a neglected topic and analyze the Colombian peace process through the lens of social inequality. The submitted papers are not limited to an unidimensional understanding of social inequality, notably economic disparities, but rather include in a systematic way intersectional approaches as well as socio-ecological perspectives.
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June 18th, 18:30 – 20:00 (CEST)
Chair: Agustina Carrizo de Reimann (Leipzig)
Moderation: Agustina Carrizo de Reimann (Leipzig)
La pandemia parece haber iniciado un nuevo capítulo de violencia e impunidad policial en Latinoamérica: Las violaciones a los derechos humanos en Chile desde octubre del 2019, la desaparición de Facundo Astudillo Castro en abril del 2020 tras haber sido detenido por la Policía de Buenos Aires y la represión brutal de las manifestaciones en Bogotá son solo algunos de los casos internacionalmente divulgados. Aun en el estado de excepción actual el abuso policial expone patrones conocidos de los órdenes político-culturales latinoamericanos, como el racismo y el autoritarismo, revelando su carácter estructural. La mesa redonda propone un debate interdisciplinario sobre cambios y continuidades en las culturas policiales latinoamericanas y sus vínculos con la ciudadanía y el Estado a través de la historia. ¿Que conecta el desempeño policial en el actual estado de excepción con experiencias pasadas? ¿Y en que se diferencian? ¿Es posible notar avances? ¿Cuáles son los retrocesos? ¿Que otros eventos y procesos menos manifiestos han condicionado y transformado las culturas policiales en Latinoamérica?
June 19th, 14:00 – 15:30 (CEST)
Chair: Marisol Palma Behnke (Santiago de Chile)
Multilingual Panel
In the last decades, “violence” has become a recurrent topic in various spheres and discussions concerning social and political movements in Latin America. Violence has acquired different meanings, becoming almost a porous term in current media societies. It is a disputed notion that tends to confuse public opinion and to standardize “violence” of various kinds. For instance, although repressive police violence has been questioned and rejected, allowing a slow process of discussion around the means and protocols for the use of violence in some Latin American countries, at the same time, it is justified and equated with “political violence” from the streets. What types of violence do social movements show? This panel proposes to reflect on various phenomena of violence – state, police, political, symbolic, gender, etc. – emerging and evident in the contexts of more recent social movements in Latin America. Various cases and approaches to these phenomena will be contrasted considering media, political, socioeconomic, aesthetic, and cultural dimensions.
The last contribution of the conference focuses on how the current pandemic aggravates and places in the spotlight the long-standing social and economic problems of the country. Based on the examination of three cases, Carolina Galindo will examine the impact of the pandemic on the exercise of repressive violence and citizen surveillance mechanisms. As public health problems, inequality, corruption, job insecurity, gender violence, etc., are the norm rather than the exception in the country, the talk aims to act as a starting point to identify areas of common ground with other countries of the region. In this sense, the current pandemic situation opens the forum for our final discussion.