Statement regarding the death of Juan Carlos Pinto Quintanilla
With deep sorrow, we received the news of the death, in Bolivia, of one of the members of this Working Group, Juan Carlos Pinto Quintanilla.
Weeks earlier, we had been surprised, on social media, by the fundraising campaign his colleagues had organized to cover expenses that should be covered by the government, guaranteeing equal access to healthcare for the entire population. However, the inequality against which Juan Carlos fought his entire life is now plaguing not only his beloved homeland but much of our continent.
Life on the periphery of global capitalism, under pandemic conditions, has laid bare the deep and savage inequality we already knew, now demonstrating its deadly power: while the Global North hoards vaccine doses that, on average, exceed 200% of what is needed for its entire national population, the countries of the Global South struggle to decide which population groups urgently need vaccination, without even dreaming of possessing enough doses to immunize, even, the majority of the population.[1]: tragic flip side of the weak and -in some countries almost non-existent- science and technology systems, which were seriously damaged, in the past by coups, and which today are once again the preferred focus of neoliberal policies.
Juan Carlos was a sociologist, having studied at UNAM and the San Simón University of Cochabamba. He specialized in Human Rights at the Carlos III University of Madrid and the Bolivian Center for Multidisciplinary Studies, and was also a trainer, moderator, and facilitator of Group Discussion Processes, certified by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. But above all, he was an activist, someone who dedicated his thoughts and actions to building a less unequal society.
During the process of forming the Working Group “Neighborhoods, families and circuit prisons”, its Curriculum vitae He was one of the most difficult to categorize or “standardize.” Indeed, his research interests ranged from critical criminology to intercultural democracy, encompassing union organizing, liberation theology, and electoral processes. He had published countless books, all of undeniable value, both for reforming the conditions of detention that his books and research denounced in a way, and for the history of the Bolivian prison system—San Pedro Prison: A X-ray of Injustice (1995-1996); Free Reflections of an Incarcerated Man (1997); Prisons and Family: The Experience of the San Sebastián Prison in Cochabamba (1998); “Prisons in Bolivia: State Abandonment, Legislation, and Democratic Organization” (2004, with Leticia Lorenzo). Later, as a government official for the MAS party, which he had supported since its inception, he published and edited countless magazines, always aimed at training and fostering reflection among Bolivian citizens on a wide range of economic, political, and cultural issues—such as the magazines “Intercultural Democracy” (2012), “Laws of the Plurinational State” (2012), published in Quechua and Aymara, and finally, one of the most recognized for its dual political and academic nature, “Migraine” (2014-2019), which, at the time of the formation of our Working Group, had 32 published editions.
When his name came up to join the Working Group we were forming, we didn't know each other personally. However, his warm and open personality quickly transformed him into a promoter of the Working Group's "idea," and he dedicated part of his busy days as Vice President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to identifying and suggesting a number of researchers and scholars who now make up the Bolivian section of the Working Group.
Following the last coup, she had suffered greatly, not only from the political displacement it entailed and her removal from the Vice Presidency, but primarily because of her unwavering commitment and dedication to Bolivia's revolutionary process. Thus, during the pandemic, she quickly adopted virtual platforms for monitoring and holding meetings related to the human rights violations being committed by the de facto government.
In the 90s, Juan Carlos was imprisoned and tortured because of his political activism. However, the same lucidity that led him to embrace liberation theology and join the ranks of the EGTK (Kirchnerist Guerrilla Army) remained.[2]This allowed him to transform the harsh years of confinement into a vast body of literature that partly denounced the conditions of detention and partly positioned itself beyond the prison walls, highlighting the effects that incarceration produced on detainees—"what adapts to the prison environment makes adaptation to life in freedom impossible" (Pinto Quintanilla, 1999: 595)—and on their families, as well as the importance of these families in the periods following release. From our Working Group, we were moving toward revisiting these themes, this time through a regional reflection that would allow us to strengthen a field of study linking prisons, the trajectories of incarceration, and the neighborhoods of origin of the detainees in our Global South. This is why he had been so enthusiastic about the Working Group's proposal, which coincided with what he had been thinking and writing since the late 90s.
We are convinced that a less unequal political system would have allowed him to continue such a productive and enriching life, an inexhaustible source of activities and proposals, always for the benefit of the displaced and marginalized majorities of Latin American countries. As we said at the beginning, the pandemic laid bare the enormous differences between the perspectives we citizens of the Global North and South can have regarding the virus and our health. We deeply regret that this time, our dear colleague did not have the opportunity to transform his suffering, as he did previously with the experience of confinement, into a powerful critique of the healthcare system and its inequalities.
Unfortunately, our countries have been relegated to the role of consumers of theory produced elsewhere. This has generated internal censorship that, in many cases, obstructs the dissemination of research and knowledge being produced in geographically close countries: this is what happened to us with the vast body of work of our colleague, which is difficult to access outside of Bolivia. For this reason, from the Working Group “Neighborhoods, Families, and Prisons in Circuits,” we aim to break with this pernicious tradition by promoting the circulation of knowledge being produced. en y from the South.
Thus, and feeling deeply grateful to have had him among us, this Working Group invites you to honor his memory by using his texts, disseminating them, and circulating them in our territory, as if it were an act of activism.
San José del Rincón
January 29, 2021
CLACSO Working Group
Neighborhoods, families and prisons in circuit
[1] Source: https://www.amnesty.org/es/latest/news/2020/11/wealthy-countries-already-hoarding-breakthrough-vaccines/
[2] Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army
This statement expresses the position of the Working Group Neighborhoods, families and prisons in circuito and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
