Faculty Resources
Conference on Democratic Violence in Latin America
March 12-14, 2025
About the Conference
This conference focuses on the role of 鈥渧iolence鈥 within Latin American democratic contexts. The participants define 鈥渧iolence鈥 broadly and address a wide array of issues by analyzing some of the following topics: environmentalism, drug trafficking, militarization, collective and public memory, political corruption, borders, popular culture, advocacy, migration, tourism, and many others.
Violence, the intentional use of force to cause harm and, thus, the phenomenon democratic regimes attempt to eliminate, appears at odds with democracy. Yet, we continue to see violence exist within democratic contexts time and time again. The participants鈥 analysis of Latin American political culture provides visions into what the future may hold for democratic governance.
The conference consists of panels, plenary talks, and professionalization workshops. The four plenary speakers will address these broad issues of democratic violence from their respective perspectives/disciplines, through a 45-minute talk followed by a 30-minute response from two USF professors.
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Our participants represent universities from across Latin America, the United States, and Canada, showcasing concerns over the development of democracy and violence in the following transnational contexts: Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Haiti, Brazil, El Salvador, Chile, Puerto Rico, Per煤, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Ecuador, Jamaica, and Bolivia.
The conference will conclude with professionalization workshops led by each one of the plenary speakers. The workshops are open to all participants. The workshops will focus on 1) dissertation writing, 2) journal article writing, 3) the academic job market, and 4) turning your dissertation into a book.
Plenary Speakers
Nathalie Batraville, Ph.D.
Concordia University
"Haiti, The United Nations, and the Hegemony Peace as Containment"
Abstract and Speaker Bio
Abstract:
Those familiar with contemporary Haitian politics will know that those fomenting rebellion in Haiti today would not be met by the French military or the U.S. Marines, but rather by the United Nations鈥 so-called peacekeeping missions. These missions suppress the uprisings of the disenfranchised and work to make wealth redistribution impossible and unthinkable. This talk revisits two historic rebellions against the UN and explores the ideologies and aesthetics that uphold the violent hegemony of peace enacted by this institution.
Bio:
Nathalie Batraville is an associate professor at Concordia University鈥檚 Simone de Beauvoir Institute, where she teaches in the areas of Black feminisms, queer theory, and prison abolition. A scholar and artist, her work seeks to generate and illuminate frameworks that challenge both state violence and interpersonal violence. Her scholarship has appeared in scholarly publications such as Small Axe, The Journal of Haitian Studies, The CLR James Journal, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, and Tangence. Her first book, Disrupting Agency: Towards a Black Feminist Anarchism, is forthcoming with Duke University Press. In it, she rethinks abolitionist frameworks from a Black feminist anarchist perspective. Through her ceramic art practice, she explores storytelling, plant life, desire, and rebellion.
Ralph Cintr贸n, Ph.D.
University of Illinois Chicago
"Democratic Violence and Dependency Theory"
Abstract and Speaker Bio
Abstract:
It is time to revisit dependency theory as one explanation of Latin American violence. Analyses of Latin America鈥檚 role in global capitalism reveal that during the colonial and modern eras, Latin America was relegated to the production of raw materials for European industries, which then became manufactured goods sold in the Latin American market. Here is the long history of trade imbalances, debt, and the rise of an entrenched elite class largely centered on agricultural production and not manufacturing. The liberal constitutions of Latin America that emerged during the 19th century and are still presently influential did not alter this economic structure. Today鈥檚 paramilitary drug cartels are a curious continuation: They export at industrial scale a 鈥渇inished product鈥 that remains significantly rooted in the agricultural sector.
Bio:
Ralph Cintr贸n is professor emeritus of English and Latin American and Latino Studies and Senior Researcher at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During COVID he was LALS鈥檚 interim director. He is a former Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, Fulbright Scholar, honorable mention winner for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing from the American Anthropological Association, and a Fellow of the Rhetoric Society of America. He is the author of Angels鈥 Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday as well as Democracy as Fetish. He is also the co-editor of Culture, Catastrophe + Rhetoric and Co-Pi of 60 Years of Migration: Puerto Ricans in Chicagoland. He is currently writing with a philosopher Natures and Their Cosmologies, a text about planetary heating inside modernity鈥檚 political economy. In conjunction with this last project he is working with climate scientists on a $25 million grant funded through the Department of Energy to Argonne National Laboratory and UIC, and a $2 million grant funded by Mellon, Crossing Latinidades, which is working with Latino Studies programs at UC Irvine, UT Arlington, and UIC to map the experiences of local Latino communities under climate change.
Stacey K. Sowards, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin
"Documenting Violence: Presence and Absence in Memories/Re-membering as Democratic Worldmaking"
Abstract and Speaker Bio
Abstract:
The importance of documenting, remembering, and centering the many violences that occur across our societies is evident in how we relate our histories to our presents and futures. Such documentation serves to remind us of state-sanctioned and other actor-level violence, accidental and purposeful. Through the work of cale帽o artist and photographer Oscar Mu帽oz鈥檚 2022 Invisibilia exhibit, I analyze his themes of presence/absence, memory/amnesia, and cohesion/fragmentation in how his photographs, sculptures, and other artworks document aspects of state, paramilitary, and FARC-related violence. Simultaneously recognizing the need to remember such violence and the desire to forget, Mu帽oz demonstrates the tensions residing within sedimented and fleeting memories that are blur private/public boundaries. As such, documenting violence in this way can illustrate the possibilities for democratic processes through the very act of remembering.
Bio:
Dr. Stacey Sowards teaches courses in communication theory, rhetorical theory, environmental communication, gender and communication, and intercultural communication. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 2001.
Her research focuses on environmental, intercultural, and gender and communication in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the United States. Her dissertation was a study of environmental organizations in Kalimantan, Indonesia, and was funded by a J. William Fulbright grant in 2000-2001. In 2005, she received a Fulbright-Hays grant for further study in Indonesia. She speaks both Spanish and Indonesian.
Her work in communication and rhetoric has been published as book chapters and journal articles. Other research projects focus on cultural and gender representations, and appear in journals such as Argumentation and Advocacy, Communication Studies, Philosophy and Rhetoric, and Communication Theory. Her book, on Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers, was published in 2019 with The University of Texas Press.Dr. Stacey K. Sowards served the department chair and a full professor in the department of communication and research fellow in the Sam Donaldson Center at the University of Texas at El Paso for many years before joining the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.
Celeste Wagner, Ph.D.
Rutgers University
"State Violence, Gender Justice, and Social Activism: Lessons from Latin America"
Abstract and Speaker Bio
Abstract:
This talk will first examine the current state of violence in Latin American democracies, focusing on state violence and crime. It will analyze both the region鈥檚 鈥渁nomalies鈥 and the lessons to be learned from societal responses, while drawing connections to the U.S. Second, it will address a specific issue: gender violence in the Americas, focusing on Argentina and the U.S. Specifically, it will explore how activism and communication practices can raise awareness among citizens, drawing on interviews with feminist advocates, members of the public, and surveys conducted with the general population.
Bio:
Mar铆a Celeste Wagner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University鈥檚 School of Communication and Information. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania (2022; 2018), and a Licenciatura (B.A.) in Communication from Universidad de San Andr茅s, Argentina, her home country. Celeste鈥檚 research focuses on media reception and influence surrounding social and political issues, particularly gender inequalities in the Americas. Methodologically, her work includes individual and group interviews, surveys, experiments, and comparative analysis. Her dissertation has been honored with four awards from the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association. Her research has been published in the Journal of Communication, Digital Journalism, International Journal of Communication, Media, Culture & Society, Journalism, Latin American Perspectives, among others.
Conference Location
The conference will be held on the third floor of the Marshall Student Center on the 深夜看片 Tampa campus.
Building address:
4103 Cedar Circle, Tampa, FL 33620
Parking:
Parking and directions coming soon.
Schedule
Wednesday, March 12
Schedule coming soon.
Thursday, March 13
Schedule coming soon.
Friday, March 14
Schedule coming soon.
Professionalization workshops on best practices for:
- Dissertation writing
- Journal article writing
- The academic job market
- Turning your dissertation into a book
Conference Rate Hotels
Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa USF
3705 Spectrum Blvd. Tampa, FL 33612
813-977-7066
Rate: $199 per night (King Suite)
Discounted rate available until February 9, 2025
Parking at hotel: $12 per day
Home2 Suites by Hilton Tampa USF
11606 N McKinley Dr. Tampa, FL 33612
813-750-8844
Rate: $159 per night (King Bed Studio)
Discounted rate available until February 11, 2025
La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham USF
3701 E Fowler Ave., Tampa, FL 33612
813-910-7500
Rate: $179 per night (Double and King Rooms)
Discounted rate available until February 17, 2025
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs coming soon.
Contact
For more information, please email CAS-CDVLA@usf.edu