Newsletter 2015_09_29
29.09.2015
Newsletter No. 20 – 09/29/2015
Dear members of the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’ and those interested in the IRTG,
We hope you will enjoy this twentieth issue of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ newsletter, which will inform you about our news and current events.
News from the Coordination Office
Our long-standing member of the coordination office Robert Lüdtke has left the Berlin office and assumed the assistant position at the IRTG in Mexico. We are naturally very sorry to lose such a good and dedicated supporter of the Berlin team, but at the same time look forward to a new form of collaboration with him. Robert has meanwhile learned the ropes in Mexico very well and has done valuable work at the communication interface between Mexico and Berlin/Potsdam.
New PhD Scholarships
The International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces. Movements, Actors and Representations of Globalisation’ Berlin/Potsdam has recently selected the scholarship holders of its third and last generation. During the coming months, thirteen new PhD students will begin working on their theses in Berlin/Potsdam.
The first to arrive are
Luis Aguirre
Karina Kriegesmann
The IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ has also selected two new students who will receive a scholarship for further qualification to prepare their doctorates:
Mexican Scholarship Holders in Berlin/Potsdam
The following doctoral and Master’s students of the Mexican section of the IRTG have recently arrived in Berlin:
Olinca Valeria Avilés Hernández
María Laura Serrano Santos
Guest Researchers in the Coming Semester
It is a particular pleasure for us to welcome three guest researchers for the coming winter semester. They will be attached to the International Research Training Group and take part in its events.
Ricardo Pérez Montfort, a Mexican applicant of the International Research Training Group ‘Between Spaces’, has just completed work on his important book Prohibición y tolerancia. Aproximaciones a la historia social y cultural de las drogas en México 1840-1940, which will be published in January 2016 by Penguin Random House. Ricardo will use his stay in Berlin to complete another publication, El fandango y sus cultivadores. Ensayos y testimonios. Above all, however, in Berlin he wants to work on his comprehensive and important biography of Lázaro Cárdenas, the President of Mexico form 1934 to 1943, who exercised a particular influence on the development of the Mexican state.
Ilán Bizberg, Professor of Sociology at the Colegio de México and associate researcher at the Mexican branch of the International Research Training Group, is in Berlin as the guest of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He wants to use his stay at the Latin American Institute and the International Research Training Group primarily to pursue his work on a joint project with Barbara Fritz, Professor of Economics at the Latin American Institute and applicant of the German side of the International Research Training Group, ‘Debt and Democracy; a Comparative Approach between Europe and Latin America’. The goal of this collaboration is to produce a collective paper on the transnational interdependence between different national economies and the world economy and global economic forces, taking into consideration both a temporal/historical and a spatial perspective.
Marco Estrada Saavedra is Professor of Sociology at the Colegio de México and on several occasions has been a participant in events of the International Research Training Group. As a guest of the DAAD in the coming semester, he will teach and conduct research at the Latin American Institute and the International Research Training Group. As a teacher at the latter he will take part in its Colloquium. Marco also wants to use his stay in Berlin to continue his work on his current research project on the ethnographies of Latin American states and configurations of social protest organizations.
We cordially welcome all the new members of the IRTG and look forward to working with them!
Recent Events
May 7, 2015, Inter-institutional Colloquium, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, UNAM
On May 7, another session of the Inter-institutional Colloquium of the semester took place at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales (UNAM). The participants included Professors Carlos Alba, Alberto Aziz, Marisa Belausteguigoitia, Ilán Bizberg, Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco Romo, Bernd Hausberger, Mariano Torres, Lorenza Villa Lever and Liliana Weinberg, and the students José Domingo Arreola Jiménez, Eder Antonio de Jesús Gallegos Ruíz, Cindy McCulligh, Carlos Nazario Mora Duro, Lucía Pi Cholula, María Jimena Sasso Rojas, Tania Villanueva López, María José Grisel Enríquez Cabral, Amor Teresa Sánchez and Ruben Alexander Moreno.
In this session the doctoral students Cindy McCulligh from CIESAS-Occidente, Tania Villanueva López and Lucía Pi Cholula, both from the UNAM, each introduced their current research projects.
Cindy McCulligh spoke on ‘Alcantarilla del progreso, o ¿por qué no se controla la contaminación industrial del río Santiago entre Ocotlán y El Salto, Jalisco?’, which was commented on by María Fernanda Paz Salinas (UNAM).
Tania Villanueva López presented her project ‘Constructos cóncavos-feministas y gramáticas del montaje audiovisual latinoamericano (1986-2012)’, with a commentary from Marisa Belausteguigoitia (UNAM).
Lucía Pi Cholula spoke on ‘Pensando la ciudad. El ensayo de interpretación urbana y los imaginarios’, commented on by Roberto Cruz Arzabal (UNAM).
The research projects stimulated a lively discussion amongst all participants about ecological contamination, gender and the Latin American essay.
(Robert Lüdtke, IRTG Mexico)
May 8, 2015, Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
On May 8, the Interdisciplinary Colloquium took place at the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. This was the first colloquium of the summer semester and was especially well attended by PhD scholarship holders from Berlin and Mexico. We had the pleasure of listening to four highly engaging presentations that stimulated a lively discussion among the participants.
In the first talk one of our new Mexican scholarship holders, Veremundo Carrillo Reveles, presented ‘México en la Unión de las Repúblicas Americanas – Entre el latino-americanismo, el interés nacional y la cooperación continental’. This was followed by a commentary from Michael Goebel, former postdoctoral fellow of the IRTG.
Next, doctoral candidate Manuel Assner spoke about ‘How Do Migration Status Changes Influence Remittance Sendings?’, in which he presented the first results of his research and the methods he used to combine qualitative and quantitative research.
Kevin Niebauer, another doctoral candidate, continued the session with his presentation ‘La Amazonia en las campañas de Greenpeace y del Rainforest Action Network: primeros resultados’. It consisted of a draft of the outline of his project and the first results he arrived at after finishing his research stays in Brazil and the USA.
Following the lunch break Jacqueline Garza Placencia, scholarship holder and PhD student from Mexico, presented her project ‘Sociedad civil organizada en la vigilancia y defensa de los derechos humanos ante la violencia en México’. The presentation was commented on by Anne Huffschmid, researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Latin American Studies.
(Saranda Frommold, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
May 21, 2015, Workshop ‘50 años del rodaje de Viva María’ by Bernd Hausberger (IRTG Mexico)
Bernd Hausberger, Professor of History at the Colegio de México and member of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ in Mexico, presented the highly interesting comedy-adventure film Viva Maria! (1965), starring Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau, and directed by Louis Malle. The film tells the story of two women who become caught up in an early twentieth century revolution in a fictitious Central American country called San Miguel. The aim of the workshop was to show how the Mexican Revolution was indirectly portrayed through various themes, while linking it with representational practices of gender and culture. The following discussion dealt with the question of how this film, which was designed primarily as a non-political parody, led to critical debates about the Mexican Revolution, sexuality and gender in the global context of the turbulent 1960s. What also became clear during the discussion was the importance of social, political and cultural contexts in the perception of films.
The participants of the workshop at the Colegio de México included Professors Carlos Alba, Alberto Aziz, Marisa Belausteguigoitia, Ilán Bizberg, Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco Romo, Bernd Hausberger and Teresa Carbó, and the students José Domingo Arreola Jiménez, Carlos Nazario Mora Duro, Lucía Pi Cholula, María José Grisel Enríquez Cabral, Olinca Valeria Avilés Hernández and Adriana Lamoso.
(Robert Lüdtke, IRTG Mexico)
June 6, 2015, Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
On June 6, the Interdisciplinary Colloquium took place at the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. The Colloquium was attended by PhD scholarship holders from Berlin and Mexico. Four doctoral projects were presented and commented on by participants in the Colloquium.
The first presentation, ‘Relecturas del descubrimiento y la independencia de Latinoamérica en Repertorio Americano’, was given by Sarah van der Heusen, a PhD Student from Berlin/Potsdam. In her project van der Heusen is investigating how Latin American intellectuals re-evaluated the identity of their region vis-à-vis Europe during the 1930s and 1940s, thus foreshadowing results of the post-colonial and de-colonialized intellectual traditions established later. She explained her methods and showed her preliminary results using texts on the ‘discovery’ of America from the Costa Rican literary magazine Repertorio Americano. The presentation was given a valuable commentary by Michael Goebel (Freie Universität Berlin), himself a specialist on intellectuals of early twentieth century in Latin America, Africa and Asia. This was followed by a discussion.
The second presentation was given by Isabel Dolores de León Olivares, a PhD student from the Mexican side of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’. In her talk on ‘Redes intelectuales en el Caribe, 1880-1930. Un abordaje desde la historia intelectual de la República Dominicana’, she discussed her research on intellectual networks in the Caribbean. She focused on how certain authors from the Dominican Republic formed networks with other intellectuals from the Caribbean, Latin America and beyond, and how they furthered the global circulation of ideas and concepts. The talk was commented on by Martha Zapata Galindo (IRTG Berlin/Potsdam) and was later discussed by the audience.
Following this, Marco Just Quiles, a PhD student from Berlin/Potsdam, presented the progress and results of his doctoral project. In his talk on ‘Politics and Logics of Distribution in Evo's Bolivia: Continuity or Changes?’ he discussed whether the seemingly promising social policies of the government of President Evo Morales have actually helped to overcome inequality in Bolivia or whether they have merely reproduced existing and new territorial inequalities. In view of the high hopes attached to the ‘new foundation’ of the Bolivian state promised by President Morales when he took office in 2006, this research is an important contribution to the evaluation of political change initiated by the Movimiento al Socialismo party. The talk was followed by a lively discussion.
Then Brenda María Rodríguez Juárez, a PhD student from Mexico, gave the final talk of the day. Her project on ‘El espacio de experiencia en Mexiko: prisioneras en el sector B III de Auschwitz-Birkenau, mayo-octubre de 1944’ treats section B III of the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was known among the inmates as ‘Mexiko’. In this section, which was only half built and one of the most precarious areas of the death camp, Jewish women from Hungary were forced to stay after May 1944. In her talk Rodríguez Juárez presented various hypotheses on why this place was named ‘Mexiko’ among the prisoners and possible methods of investigating the question. The talk was commented on by Marion Roewekamp (Freie Universität Berlin) and discussed among the participants.
(Thilo Papacek, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
June 10-13, 2015, Conference of Young Researchers ‘Liminalität – Liminality – Liminalité – Liminalida’, University Trier
This summer the doctoral candidates of the IRTG’s ‘Entre Espacios’ and of the University of Trier’s ‘Diversity’ planned and carried out for the first time a collaboration at a conference. The collaboration linked the geographic focal points of Latin America and North America, and presented conference participants with their methodological, conceptual and thematic similarities. The academic journey went from the Río de la Plata region to the banks of the St. Lawrence River, and from the historical beginnings of the Spanish, English and French empires to the modern sociological phenomena of border regions. ‘Entre Espacios’ would like to express its thanks for a productive and fruitful collaboration, an instructive and successful conference, and marvellous hosts. Our second generation of the Research Training Group now passes on the baton to the third generation and hopes for a follow-up in Berlin.
(Javier Francisco Vallejo, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
June 17/18, 2015, International Conference ‘Entre Espacios y la violencia’, Institute of Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
On 17 and 18 June 2015 the international conference ‘Entre Espacios y la violencia’, organized by the International Research Training Group, took place at the Latin American Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin. The conference pursued a twofold goal. On the one hand, it provided the members of the participating institutions in Germany and Mexico with a good opportunity to meet, present and discuss their current research results; on the other, it served to treat a subject that touches the lives of millions of people across the continent. The lectures dealt with three specific aspects of violence: symbolic violence, physical and political violence, and society in the face of violence.
Under the category of symbolic violence the lecturers discussed through historical and contemporary aspects how violence affects various parts of Mexico society. In connection to physical and political violence, a trans-national approach proved itself useful for analyzing, for instance, violence on the border between Mexico and the United States, or for showing how Chinese traders at the markets of Tepito in Mexico City have created a niche for themselves as mediators in the informal sector. Finally, with respect to society in the face of violence, the conference discussed how various social movements within Mexican society have been fighting for the protection of human rights.
The meeting of professors, doctoral candidates and post-doctoral fellows with the aim of discussing the important issue of violence in all its aspects and forms was successful and achieved the desired goals of the conference.
(Felipe Rubio, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
June 18, 2015, exhibition opening Globalización desde abajo: los mercados informales de la Salada (Buenos Aires) y Tepito (México DF), Ibero-American Institute, Berlin
How does globalization construct itself from under? What prosaic and everyday phenomena, which nevertheless remain invisible, link the world? With the help of photographs by Sarah Pabst and Francisco Mata Rosas, the launch event to the exhibition Globalization from Under: the Informal Markets La Salada (Buenos Aires) and Tepito (Mexico City) gave answers to these kinds of questions. The event took place on 18 June 2015 at the Ibero-American Institute.
The roundtable discussion was presented by the director of the Institute, Barbara Göbel. Participating in the discussion were Carlos Alba Vega of the Colegio de México, Matías Dewey of the Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, and as moderator Marianne Braig of the Freie Universität Berlin. The participants analyzed both the market at Tepito in Mexico and that in La Salada as centres in which knowledge circulates, as places formed by trans-national elements and that stand at a distance from the formal authoritarian mechanisms of the state.
It was an enrichment of the discussion that both the Mexican photographer Francisco Mata Rosas, a recognized exponent of contemporary photography in Latin America, and the German photographer Sarah Pabst were present. The audience, consisting of students, library users of the Institute and other interested in Latin America, followed how the discussion changed its perspective from the theoretical to the practical. From under.
The exhibition was on display in the reading room of the Ibero-American Institute from 19 June to 3 September 2015.
(Carlos Pérez Ricart, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
July 17, 2015, Interdisciplinary Colloquium, Institute for Latin American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin
On July 17 the last Interdisciplinary Colloquium of the semester took place at the Institute for Latin American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. Four projects were presented to an audience consisting of the members of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’.
First Cuauhtémoc Pérez Medrano presented the final results of his PhD thesis. He is a scholarship holder and PhD candidate from the IRTG Berlin/Potsdam and his investigations are already well advanced. His presentation of ‘Sistema de insularidades en la narrativa cubana contemporánea’ discussed the concept of insularity and its influence on contemporary Cuban literature. His talk was commented on by Sergio Ugalde (Universität Potsdam) and was discussed by the audience of the Interdisciplinary Colloquium.
After this, Nadia Zysman, a postdoctoral researcher of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ Berlin/Potsdam, presented the paper ‘Descosiendo fronteras: relaciones de género y sentidos de pertenencia de la comunidad judía en el mundo textil de São Paulo y Buenos Aires (1880-1960)’. She focused on how Jewish immigrants to Argentina worked in the textile industry and forged new labour structures. There followed a lively discussion.
The third talk was given by Tania Villanueva López, a doctoral student from the IRTG Mexico: ‘El color de la sangre: concavidad en el montaje audiovisual latinoamericano’. Villanueva López is investigating a specifically feminist form of montage in audio-visual productions of art. The field of interest spans diverse topics such as video-art, documentaries and experimental film/video productions from 1986 to 2012. She proposes the concept of concavity, first introduced by the feminist Luce Irigaray, to describe and analyse a specific feminist aesthetic present in the audio-visual art created by Latin American women during the last decades.
The final presentation was by Laura Paetau, a doctoral student of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ Berlin/Potsdam, on ‘Making Race – Theories of Racial Formation’. She discussed the progress she made in her research on theories of racial formation during her stay at the University of California, Berkeley. Paetau highlighted how her new understanding of these theories will benefit her doctoral project. Her talk was commented on by Börries Nehe, a former doctoral student of the IRTG ‘Between Spaces’ from Mexico. A discussion followed.
(Nadia Zysman, IRTG Berlin/Potsdam)
August 27, 2015, Inter-Institutional Colloquium, lecture by Susanne Klengel, El Colegio de México
On August 27, the Inter-Institutional Colloquium took place at El Colegio de México. Invited was Susanne Klengel, Professor of Latin American Literatures and Cultures at the Freie Universität Berlin and member of the International Research Training Group, to give a talk about one of her current research projects.
Susanne Klengel spoke on ‘Tagore y sus des/encuentros latinoamericanos: Circulación de actores e imaginarios entre India, Londres, Guyana y Argentina’ with comments from Adrián Muñoz of El Colegio de México and Xicoténcatl Martínez of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional.
Klengel’s presentation focused on the intellectual career of the Indian philosopher and Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941). In 1913 Tagore became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Klengel spoke about the complex cultural reception of Tagore in Latin America and its impact on the south-south relations between India and different Latin American countries. The lecture emphasized the intellectual encounters between Tagore and the long-standing editor of the Argentinean journal Sur, Victoria Ocampo (1890 – 1979). In the 1920s Ocampo created an international network of intellectuals and authors (among them Jorge Luis Borges, Waldo Frank, Hermann Graf Keyserling, Drieu la Rochelle and Rabindranath Tagore).
The participants in the forum included Professors Carlos Alba, Marisa Belausteguigoitia, Ilán Bizberg, Bernd Hausberger, Lorenza Villa Lever, Guillermo Zermeño, Mariano Torres, Antonio Ibarra and Luz Elena Gutiérrez de Velasco Romo, and the students Rainer Hurtado Navarro, Saranda Frommold, Diana Marisol Hernández Suárez, Sebastián, Pineda Buitrago, Jesús Dávila Dávila, Armando Benítez and Wendy Morales Prado.
Susanne Klengel’s presentation stimulated a lively discussion amongst all participants about the intellectual and cultural reception of Tagore in Latin America.
(Robert Lüdtke, IRTG Mexico)
Upcoming Events
IN BERLIN:
October 27, 2015, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
November 6, 2015, 10 am – 4 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
November 10, 2015, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
November 17, 2015, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
December 4, 2015, 10 am – 4 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
December 15, 2015, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium, followed by the IRTG Christmas Party
January 19, 2016, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 201
Inauguration of the third generation of IRTG scholarship holders, reception
January 22, 2016, 10 am – 4 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
January 26, 2016, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
February 2, 2016, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
February 9, 2016, 2-4 pm, LAI, room 243 and others
Tutor’s Day at the IRTG
February 9, 2016, 6-8 pm, LAI, room 243
Interdisciplinary Colloquium
February 25, 2016, LAI
Simposium ‘Historia global, historia regional e historia local en América Latina: ¿promesa o peligro?’ (Stefan Rinke)
IN MEXICO:
October 1, 2015, 4-6 pm, El Colegio de México, salón 2243
Presentation of research projects by participating members of the IRTG Mexico
Carlos Alba (El Colegio de México): ‘Los empresarios mexicanos y las políticas públicas’
October 15, 2015, 4-6 pm, UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, aula 1 (ground floor)
Presentation of research projects by participating members of the IRTG Mexico
Bernd Hausberger (El Colegio de México): TBA
October 29, 2015, 4-6 pm, CIESAS, Calle Juárez 222, Sala de Consejos
Presentation of research projects by participating members of the IRTG Mexico
Marisa Belausteguigoitia (UNAM): film screening of Nos pintamos solas with discussion
Commentary: Márgara Millán (UNAM)
November 12, 2015, 4-6 pm, El Colegio de México, salón 2243
Presentation of research projects by participating members of the IRTG Mexico
Lorenza Villa Lever (UNAM): ‘Capital social y asimetrías universitarias’
November 17, 2015, 4-6 pm, El Colegio de México, salón 2243
Talk by Vittoria Borsò (Universität Düsseldorf): ‘Los conceptos de entre lugar: entre geopolítica y estética’
April 11/12, 2016, El Colegio de México
International Conference of the IRTG
April 13-15, 2016, El Colegio de México
Workshop with presentations of the third generation of IRTG doctoral students
Best wishes,
Ingrid Simson and the IRTG team
