CLACSO in Boston
From Friday, May 24, until Monday, May 27, CLACSO is participating in the XXXVII Congress of LASA, the Latin American Studies Association, under the slogan: “Our America: Justice and Inclusion”, in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
With 2019 designated as the International Year of Indigenous Languages by the United Nations General Assembly, the meeting features 12 special sessions addressing the theme of "Indigenous Languages and Literatures".
The CLACSO delegation will be made up of its Executive Secretary Karina Batthyány and the Directors Pablo Vommaro of Research, Nicolás Arata of Training, and Gustavo Lema of Communication and Information.
At the inaugural ceremony, Colombian researcher Mara Viveros assumed the new presidency of LASA, and Ecuadorian Gioconda Herrera, both members of CLACSO, assumed the vice-presidency.
The CLACSO stand
CLACSO arrived at the LASA Congress with a large quantity of materials and books available at their stand. D25, where talks, meetings and interviews are also held, and where the General Meeting of Working Groups and CLACSO member centers gathered on the afternoon of Saturday, May 25.
Karina Batthyány explained that “CLACSO has always been present at LASA; our researchers, in this case belonging to 23 Working Groups, participate with presentations on various panels and book launches. Furthermore, we bring not only part of our own research, but at our stand we also organize meetings for social science researchers focused on Latin American studies.”
Lucas Sablich, one of the staff members at booth D25 at LASA, explained that “CLACSO is presenting a selection of materials, on this occasion around one hundred titles from our catalog, which, by the way, can be viewed in its entirety on our website at https://www.clacso.org.ar/libreria-latinoamericana/inicio.php and http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar.” In addition, those who visit the booth will have the opportunity to participate in a book raffle.
From the stand, Gustavo Lema, Director of Communication and Information, streamed live for CLACSO radio, reporting on the development of the activities.
https://www.spreaker.com/user/clacso/clacso-radio-en-lasa
Meetings
During their participation in LASA, several meetings were held with sister organizations. “For example,” Batthyány reports, “we met with Oxfam America, whom we visited at their headquarters here in the United States. We have been working with Oxfam for some time; we share common interests, issues, and collaborative work that we want to strengthen and deepen. Specifically, we agreed to work on four issues: migration, a key issue for the entire continent and particularly for Central America and the Caribbean; climate change; gender; and democracy and human rights.”
According to Pablo Vommaro, Director of Research, “this alliance also strengthens our ability to influence public agendas, media agendas, and public policies. In this way, CLACSO strengthens its influence by combining rigorous academic and scientific research with public influence, always working in conjunction with social movements.”
Earlier, on Friday the 24th, a significant agreement was signed with US libraries to provide them with CLACSO books. Regarding this, Nicolás Arata, Director of Training, explained that “after months of work establishing connections with the main libraries of North American universities, we reached an agreement through which this consortium of libraries, particularly those interested in Latin American studies, offered concrete and very significant support for the development of CLACSO's open access, always guaranteeing the principles that CLACSO promotes: open access, free downloading of materials, and also allowing the authors of this publishing house a wider dissemination of their work.”
