Newsletter No.15 - 08/13/2013
13.08.2013
Dear members of the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ and those interested in the IRTG,
With this, the fifteenth issue of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ Newsletter, we would like to inform you about our news and current events.
News from the Coordination Office
We want to thank Julia Zahn, who has been working for the IRTG since the beginning and now left the office, for her commitment and engagement. As we are looking for a replacement for Julia, we invite interested persons to contact us. The job description will soon be posted on our website.
Saranda Frommold, our assistant at the IRTG in Mexico, is also leaving the office to concentrate on her PhD thesis. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Saranda for her excellent work over the years. Our new assistant at the Colegio de México will be Jessica Laura Hübschmann. We look forward to working with her and wish her well in her new position.
Summer Break of the Coordination Office
During the summer break, the Coordination Office will be closed from August 15 to September 29, 2013. Please keep in mind that no emails will be answered by the office during this time.
New Scholarship Holders
At the end of last year, the IRTG selected a new group of scholarship holders to start in January 2013. We would now like to introduce the new doctoral students in the fields of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Sociology and Economy:
Fernandos dos Santos Baldraia Sousa
The IRTG has also selected three candidates for further qualification:
New Mexican Scholarship Holders
The Mexican branch of the IRTG has also selected a new group of scholarship holders. The following doctoral and master students arrived recently in Berlin or will arrive during the coming months:
Karina Adriana Esparza Salinas
Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera
We cordially welcome all the new members of the IRTG and look forward to working with them!
Recent Events
March 1, 2013, Inter-institutional Colloquium, El Colegio de México
On March 1, the Inter-institutional Colloquium was held for the fourth time this year. Participants at the Colegio de México included Carlos Alba, Alberto Aziz, Teresa Carbó, Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco, Bernd Hausberger, Rian Lozano, Günther Maihold, as well as Mexican fellows from the IRTG.
The two fellows from CIESAS Occidente came to Mexico City to introduce their dissertation projects. Gabriele Rabenbauer (CIESAS Occidente) presented her project “La estancia del almirante y ministro plenipotenciario alemán, Paul von Hintze en México (1911-1914)”, a study on the role of Paul Hintze in Mexican politics during his administration. Comments on her project were provided by Servando Ortoll (UABC Mexicali).
Susana Gutiérrez Portillo (CIESAS Occidente) presented her initial findings from the interviews she conducted in the course of her research on “Nunca fue la isla de los hombres solos: Las primeras egresadas de ingeniería y su historia en la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California ( 1967-1997)”. Comments on her project were provided by Teresa Carbó.
Postdoc Indra Labardini Fragoso (UNAM) spoke about her project “México y Cuba: vínculos diplomáticos y relaciones internacionales. Análisis histórico comparativo de su política exterior durante los años de 1913-1920”, an analysis of the diplomatic relations between Mexico and Cuba in the context of the political dominance of the USA. Comments on her project were provided by Bernd Hausberger .
(Saranda Frommold, IRTG Mexico)
April 11, 2013, Inter-institutional Colloquium, CIESAS
On April 11, 2013, the second part of this year’s inter-institutional colloquium was held, which gave both professors of the IRTG and invited guests the opportunity to present their current research projects. Among those present were Alberto Aziz, Teresa Carbó, Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco, Mariano Torres, Lorenza Villa Lever, and Guillermo Zermeño, as well as Mexican fellows from the IRTG. A fellow of the CIESAS Occidente took part in the colloquium via video conference.
The second part of this year’s inter-institutional colloquium was kicked off with a presentation by Guillermo Zermeño (El Colegio de México). He shared the latest findings from his current research project: “La condición postnacional en la historiografía contemporánea: el caso de Iberconceptos”. He discussed the question of semantic change with regard to various political concepts over the last few centuries. This kind of political and linguistic conceptual history is especially examined in Latin America. He also presented various publications that center on the ‘Iberconceptos’, including the Diccionario político y social del mundo iberoamericano. La era de las revoluciones, 1750-1850 (vol. I, Javier Fernández Sebastián, ed., Madrid, Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2009, 1422 pp.).
Comments on his presentation were provided by Aurelia Valero (El Colegio de México), which was followed by a lively discussion with all participants.
(Saranda Frommold, IRTG Mexico)
May 27, 2013, Visit of the New President of Conacyt, Enrique Cabrero, at the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’
On Monday, May 27, the new President of the Mexican Concejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Conacyt), Enrique Cabrero, visited the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ at the Institute for Latin American Studies at Berlin. Starting with lunch, Enrique Cabrero and his wife Ana, a social scientist who works at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), were accompanied by professors and students from the IRTG as well as Herbert Grieshop from the Center for International Cooperation of Freie Universität Berlin and Brigitta Schütt, Vice President of Freie Universität Berlin. After lunch, Enrique and Ana Cabrero met with doctoral and postdoctoral candidates of the IRTG at the Institute for Latin American Studies and discussed matters concerning the IRTG and Conacyt.
(Ingrid Simson, IRTG Berlin)
June 15 and 17, 2013, Opening Conference: “Perspectivas Entre Espacios: globalizaciones históricas y actuales”
The Opening Conference “Perspectivas Entre Espacios: globalizaciones históricas y actuales” of the new generation of scholarship holders in the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’, took place on June 15 and 17 at the Seminaris Campus Hotel in Berlin. This event reunited the training group’s Mexican and German partners. During the two-day conference, the German scholarship holders and Mexican doctoral and postdoctoral fellows presented their research projects to their colleagues. Each presentation was commented on by one of our affiliated professors, which was followed by a stimulating conversation about the proposals with all participants.
The keynote lectures were the highlights of the conference. On Saturday, Cynthia Milton from the Université de Montreal gave a talk on ‘Art from Fractured Pasts: Representations and Memory in the Aftermath of Violence’. On Monday, Xóchitl Leyva, Axel Köhler and Floriano Enrique Hernández Cruz (Ronyk), all members of Red de Artistas, Comunicadores Comunitarios y Antropólog@s de Chiapas (RACCACH), presented their topic, “Mas allá de la interdisciplina y la globalización: la adisciplina, lo glocal y la teoría encarnada”. Both of these keynote lectures provided invaluable theoretical and methodological insights that contributed to the construction of the approach ‘between spaces’ that shapes the research group’s primary objectives.
(Kenya Herrera, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
June 20, 2013, Workshop: Montserrat Algarabel (COLMEX), Stephanie Brewster (UNAM), “Creación y Representación Cinematográfica”
This workshop dealt with analysing movies from the point of view of their actual production and how the creative process is linked to the way in which a film is finally shown on the screen. Choices made by directors and their staff determine what is and what is not seen in the finished movie and how a story is to be told, which is based on an array of different factors, from the film location and the selection of actors to the sound design and editing process. Brewster and Algarabel thus argue that films are carefully crafted audiovisual discourses which construct and display the director’s original idea ‒ his or her ‘way of seeing’ in Berger’s terminology. Decisions are made in a broad scope of situations, and it is how the director employs these resources ‒ or manages with a lack of them ‒ that translates into a specific cinematographic language. This workshop was structured around a brief presentation on creation and representation as heuristic concepts and the viewing and discussion of selected extracts from two documentary films: Lost in La Mancha (Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, UK/USA, 2002) and Burden of Dreams (Les Blank, USA, 1982). Both documentaries concern the creative process and actual setbacks experienced in two feature films. Lost in La Mancha recounts the story of Terry Gilliam’s failed movie adaptation of Don Quixote due to production difficulties ‒ from bad weather and illness on the set to financial strain ‒ whereas Burden of Dreams chronicles the extraordinarily daring, complicated, and eventually successful shooting of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo in the Peruvian rainforest. Gilliam’s and Herzog’s personal aesthetics and politics ‒ may be elicited from the interviews in these documentaries. In short, films not only present the director’s view of the world and the social relations within it, but effectively create a world in the transition from project to final product. Brewster and Algarabel ultimately assert that the study of concrete examples of film-making –successful or otherwise – allows for a better understanding of how film is both industry and art, and how movies convey values, ideals, and ideological stances.
(Montserrat Algarabel, IRTG Mexico)
July 3-5, 2013, Workshop: Alejandra Leal (UNAM), “Teoría y métodos de investigación etnográfica”
On July, 3, 4 and 5, 2013, Alejandra Leal, fellow at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, directed the workshop “Teoría y métodos de investigación etnográfica”. The aim of the meetings was for participants to discuss the anthropological perspective of ethnographic fieldwork by focusing on its epistemological and methodological aspects. The first day, IRTG students examined the specificity of the ethnographical method and how it impacts the construction of the study object and the knowledge that is produced. Views were also exchanged on the political and ethical implications of the use of this method in selecting/building the ‘field’ where scholars are to conduct the research. The next day, professors and students analysed the importance of the ethnographer’s prolonged presence in the field for becoming immersed in the social world of those who are under study. An exercise undertaken at the campus of Freie Universität Berlin made it possible to contemplate the flexibility and limits of participant observation, observation and field notes as central techniques of the ethnographic method. On the last day, participants critically assessed the production of life histories and the characteristics of interviewing as a means of constructing productive research data. Finally, there was a discussion of the ethnographic method as a writing genre and how researchers transform ethnographic data in a text with certain tendencies toward generalization. As the whole workshop was conceived to support IRTG students’ projects, participants at the three-day meeting benefited from insights on the coherence and pertinence of their general and particular objectives, theories, research methods, and specific techniques.
(León Felipe Téllez Contreras, IRTG)
Book Publications
Carlos Alba, Marianne Braig, Stefan Rinke, Guillermo Zermeño (eds.) (2013): Entre Espacios. Movimientos, actores y representaciones de la globalización, Berlin: Edition tranvia.
The actor-perspective based investigation of the interactions between space and movement throughout history and in the present opens up new opportunities for analysis regarding Latin America in a global context. Accordingly, transnational and trans-regional connections are examined in the Americas, along with interactions with Europe and non-European regions. Since the Europeans’ ‘discovery’ and conquest of the New World, cross-border movements have created new and ever-changing spaces. These reproduce and reinforce each other simultaneously through the interactions of manifold actors coming from different worlds and bearing diverse representations.
Alumni Report
Lorena Torres Bernardino Reports on Her Stay at the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ in Berlin
While a student of Political and Social Sciences at UNAM and a fellow of the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’, I visited the IRTG and the Latin American Institute at Freie Universität Berlin for a two-month research stay. During my time there, I was able to meet my objective of completing my Master's thesis. My ability to work at the Institute for Latin American Studies and the Ibero-American Institute played a relevant role in the completion of my Master's thesis.
At the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’, I had the opportunity to present my research at the colloquium organized by Barbara Fritz. The participants’ responses were very helpful. The exchange of ideas and the suggestions I received were enormously valuable to me and my work.
I often took advantage of the events at the Ibero-American Institute. The library is also an excellent place to work.
The research programme of the International Research Training ‘Between Spaces’ is demanding and provides excellent opportunities to students pursuing their academic training and who would like to come into contact with other students and researchers.
Upcoming Events
IN BERLIN:
Reading Group
The Reading Group of the IRTG Berlin will meet during September and October on the following days:
September 3, 10, 17, 24 and October 1, 8
All scholarship holders are invited to join the group. Material can be found on Blackboard.
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
The Interdisciplinary Colloquium in winter term will again be organised in blocks.
September 24, 2013, 10 am to 3 pm, room 243
Presentations by Laura Paetau, Sarah van der Heusen, Tanja Wälty, and Carlos Pérez Ricart.
November 22, 2013, 10 am to 3 pm, room 243
Presentations by Kenya Herrera, Kevin Niebauer, Birgit Sulzer, and Cuauhtémoc Pérez Medrano.
January 17, 2014, 10 am to 3 pm, room 243
Presentations by Katharina Farys (to be confirmed), Fernando dos Santos Baldraia, Deepika Tekchandani, and Manuel Aßner.
For further details of the programme, please visit our website.
Ringvorlesung
Winter term the IRTG will start again its Ringvorlesung. The first meeting will take place on November 5, from 6 to 8 pm, room 243. The Ringvorlesung will start with an introduction to the field of history and its relevance for the programme of the IRTG. For further details and dates, please visit our website.
Workshop
September 26 and 27, 10 am to 4 pm, room 243
Raúl Balbuena Bello (Instituto de Investigaciones Culturales-Museo, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California): “Reflexiones teóricas y metodológicas sobre el género”
Lecture
October 24, 2013, 2 pm, room 243
Marco Estrada Saavedra (El Colegio de México): “Estado, hegemonía y protesta social: el caso del movimiento magisterial oaxaqueño (1980-2006)“
IN MEXICO:
August 15, 2013, 4:30 to 6 pm, Lecture Tabea Huth (IRTG Berlin/Potsdam): "Tijuana Travestida: el activismo cultural y la lucha contra la homofobia", Sala de Juntas of CISAN, Piso 10, Torre II de Humanidades, UNAM
August 29, 2013, 9:45 am to 6:45 pm, Conference: “Prácticas de movilidad en el mundo hispánico (siglos XVI-XIX)”, El Colegio de México, Sala Alfonso Reyes
Conference with presentations by Bernd Hausberger, Ingrid Kummels, Mariano Bonialian, and others.
August 30, 2013, 2:30 to 7 pm, Alumni Meeting, Ciudad de México
All former recent and former scholarship holders are invited. For further information, please contact Saranda Frommold from El Colegio de México.
September 12, 2013, 4-6 pm, Inter-institutional Colloquium, CIESAS, Tlalpan
José Alberto Moreno Chávez (IRTG Mexico/CIESAS): “El proyecto de modernidad católica: paradoja y utopía en el siglo XIX”
Maira Oliva Ríos (IRTG Mexico/CIESAS): “El Parque Nacional Volcán Barú y la Conservación Ambiental en la Provincia de Chiriquí. Esfuerzos hacia la participación social y la gobernanza en un área protegida de Panamá”
September 26, 2013, 4-6 pm, Inter-institutional Colloquium, El Colegio de México
Marco Antonio Aranda Andrade (IRTG Mexico/El Colegio de México): “¡Si nos tocan a unx, nos tocan a todxs! Un estudio sociológico sobre la solidaridad neozapatista: 1994-2011”
Karina Esparza (IRTG Mexico/El Colegio de México): “Territorialización en Indonesia y sus conexiones locales y globales: políticas de la tenencia de la tierra frente al esquema de Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación de los Bosques Plus (REDD+)”
October 10, 2013, 4-6 pm, Inter-institutional Colloquium, UNAM
Meztli Yoalli Rodríguez Aguilera (IRTG Mexico/CIESAS): “Entre el discurso y la vivencia propia: derechos humanos y seguridad con mujeres centroamericanas en Tapachula”
Cuauhtémoc Pérez Medrano (IRTG Berlin/Potsdam): “Insularidad y Postmodernidad en Cuba contemporánea”
October 24, 2013, 4-6 pm, Inter-institutional Colloquium, CIESAS, Tlalpan
Bruno Miranda (IRTG Mexico/UNAM): “Relaciones entre reestructuración productiva, migración indocumentada/clandestina y discriminación étnico-racial hacia bolivian@s en la industria textil de São Paulo”
Tanja Wälty (IRTG Berlin/Potsdam): “’¡Porque somos mujeres combativas, cansadas de que por ignorancia no seamos escuchadas!’ Mujeres en el movimiento punk en la Ciudad de México“
November 21, 2013, 4-6 pm, Inter-institutional Colloquium, UNAM
Carlos Pérez Ricart (IRTG Berlin/Potsdam): “Agencias anti narcótico norteamericanas en México: transferencia, convergencia y reproducción de políticas”
Ximena Alba (IRTG Berlin/Potsdam): “Mujeres chinas dentro y fuera de los circuitos diaspóricos. Formas de reapropiación económica y construcción de nuevas redes sociales”
For more information on our programme and activities, please visit our website: www.entre-espacios.de
Best wishes,
Ingrid Simson and the IRTG team
