Scholars of Latin America have documented processes of urbanization, not only in terms of the growth of mega-cities, but also in the transformations of the countryside. They have considered how the organization of urban space, politics and society takes shape in relation to the city’s outside or margins, as well as transnational norms, flows and networks. In her work on late twentieth-century Lima, Peru, Prof. Gandolfo analyzes how urban forces of disorder and contradiction resist incorporation into rational understandings of the state and neoliberal governance. In 2013, Colombian farmers took to the streets of Bogotá to protest agricultural policies enacted in the wake of free trade agreements. The farmers were supported by many city-dwelling students who called themselves “descendants of the campesinos” demonstrating the proximity between political processes internal to the city and its “hinterlands.” The port cities of Havana and Veracruz provide historical examples of how cities were formed in relationship to networks of exchange and the flow of goods; the two cities maintained such a close relationship of trade in the colonial period that their functions began to mirror one another. In these and other examples, the stable boundaries of urban space are put into question by something that is seen to be outside or beyond itself—be it disorder and excess, its margins or “hinterlands,” or transnational economies.

We invite scholars from all disciplines and stages of their careers to reflect on the changing political, social, economic and physical landscape of the Latin American city, particularly as it is transformed in relation to its “outside” and at the nexus of colonial and postcolonial historical processes.

Keynote Speaker: DANIELLA GANDOLFO (Anthropology, Wesleyan University)

Suggested Topics:

  • Boundaries between the urban and the rural
  • Cosmopolitanism and globalization
  • The city as "local" space
  • Marginality
  • Radical politics
  • Human rights
  • Citizenship
  • Social movements
  • Identity
  • Violence
  • Police
  • Bureaucracy
  • Environment and resources
  • Consumption
  • Food Security
  • Public health
  • Urban planning and renewal
  • Race
  • Visual and performing arts
  • Literary circles
  • Pre-colonial and colonial history
  • Migration and diaspora

Please e-mail a title, an abstract (about 200words), academic affiliation, and contact information in a word document to jhuplas[at]gmail.com.