MA1 The Identity of the City

Course Lecturers:
Dr. Christien Klaufus – Dr. Arij Ouweneel
Period: 2 November 2011 – 25 januari 2012
Time: Wednesdays 15.00 – 17.00 hours
(Study groups)
Course load: 10 EC's
Maximum number of participants: 15

FINISHED

Latin America is the New World, the continent of hope. Hope for a better life for the poor; hope for a more egalitarian society. People used to think that this hope was to be found on the countryside, in the life of the peasants and Indians. Not surprisingly, our attention is nowadays directed towards the city as a hotbed of resistance; as a location of alternative identity constructions, as Latin America has urbanized at a high pace over the last decade: more than three quarters of the population live in urban areas. The time when the physical form of the Latin American city was thought to determine its social order is over. Today cities are addressed by exploring the identity of the resistance, as a new face of this New World. In this course, students will themselves explore the workings of this identity formation and its roots, making use of human-geographical and cultural studies. In the introductory part an overview will be given of Latin American urban studies and the history of urban development. The attention will subse-quently be shifted toward contemporary social movements, socio-spatial segregation, violence, urban policies and urban governance. De course rounds up with working groups that address everyday experi-ences in the city, as well as identifications with the city and urban imaginaries on TV, in music, and in the cinema.

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MA2 Gender, family and poverty in Latin America

Course lecturer: Dr. Annelou Ypeij
Period: 3 November 2011 – January 2012
Time: Thursdays 13.00 – 17.15 hours (note: schedule change)
Course load: 6 EC’s, can be extended to 10
Max. aantal deelnemers: 15

FINISHED

In the last twenty years gender relations in Latin America have been greatly transformed within the context of globalization processes and reforms. Restructured labour markets, growing poverty and increasing migration flows have meant new challenges and problems in the daily lives of poor women and men, but they also offer new opportunities. These social transformations have often led to a repositioning of women and men in relation to each other in which process they renegotiate their relationships. Conceptions of femininity and masculinity are constantly being reconstructed and are acquiring new meanings.

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MA3 Globalisation and the Future of Amazonia

Course lecturer: Dr. Pitou van Dijck
Period: 22 November 2011 – 31 January 2012
Time: Tuesdays 14.00 – 17.00 hours
Course load: 6 EC's (can be extended to 10 EC's)
Max. number of participants: 15
Entry requirements: Basic knowledge of economics

FINISHED

MA 3 Globalisation and the Future of Amazonia has been cancelled. However, students who are interested may participate in this course as a Lecturas Guiadas on the same topics. A Lecturas Guiadas is flexible and involves a series of meetings with a small group of participants, reading course material, group discussions and writing papers. The course load of 6 ECs will not be changed. Those who are interested in participating in this Lecturas Guiadas are kindly invited to contact Louise Stuttenheim at the CEDLA secretariat (020 525 3498). Those who have already registered for MA 3 need not register again for this Lecturas Guiadas if they wish to participate.The first meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, 6 December 2011, at 14.15 hours at CEDLA. Participants in this Lecturas Guiadas series are strongly advised to download and read WWF Keeping the Amazon Forests Standing: A Matter of Values (by Pita Verweij, Pieter van Beukering et al.). This text will be discussed at the first meeting.

This course focuses on the major driving forces behind the process of deforestation and land use conversion in Amazonia and on the methodology to assess (ex ante) the socio-economic and environmental impacts of interventions in the area, prior to the actual introduction of the intervention itself. Among the major driving forces contributing to deforestation and fragmentation of the ecosystems are large-scale cattle ranging, large-scale agriculture, production of biofuels, hydro-energy production, and exploitation of natural resources like oil, gas, iron ore, gold. Roads play a key role in these developments as they link the area with world markets and facilitate access to the area for migrants and small-scale producers.

The introduction of several large-scale infrastructure programmes like IIRSA and PAC will have a major impact on the future pattern of land use in the area, speed up the process of deforestation and fragmentation, and contribute to loss of biodiversity and the capability of the area to supply eco-services. To assess the probable or potential impacts of interventions such as road and dam construction, the course focuses on the methodology of so-called strategic environmental assessments (SEAs).These assessments are required by law in several countries in the region and also by financial institutions involved in investment in infrastructure.

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MA4 Globalisation, Regionalisation and Economic Development in Latin America

Course lecturer: Dr. Pitou van Dijck
Period: 1 December 2011 – 2 February 2012
Time: Thursdays 14.15 – 17.00 hours
Course load: 6 - 10 EC's
Max. no. of participants: 15
Entry requirement: Basic knowledge of economics

FINISHED

Globalisation is a container term, including economic, political, social and cultural dimensions. In the course of time, driving forces, leading actors and nations, policies, and effects for stakeholders in the process have changed strongly. Clearly, globalisation is a long-term and global phenomenon affecting all countries, and its implications differ in time and across countries. After a long period of more inward-orientated and state-dominated development throughout several decades, neoliberal policies have started to support the opening of many Latin American countries since the late 1980s. The process of integration in international markets for goods, services, labour and capital has been structured and stimulated in Land America by government policies and initiatives to open economies unilaterally in the context of the so-called Washington Agenda.

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MA5 Natural Resources and Environmental Management in Latin America

Course lecturer: Dr. Fábio de Castro
Period: 6 February (note: date change) – 9 April 2012
Time: Mondays 14.00 – 17.00 hours
Course load: 10 EC's
Max. no. of participants: 15

Registration Form

The pattern of natural resource use during the pre-Colombian period has strongly been influenced by local environmental factors in Latin America. The diversity of landscape (e.g., rainforest, mountains, plains, and coasts) reveals distinct management systems by the indigenous groups according to the spatial and temporal distribution and abundance of natural resources. The arrival of the Europeans introduced new production systems, institutions, and social relations in the region. The interplay between the local environmental factors and the external social variables introduced during the colonization and post-colonial periods has led to a myriad of rural societies (e.g., maroons, mestizos, rubber tappers, and ribereños) and patterns of resource use (e.g., water management, fishing, forestry, shifting cultivation) we see today. More recently, the international concern regarding the role of the tropical forests on global climate change has added to this process by stimulating preservationist policies (e.g., conservation units, indigenous reserves, co-management initiatives) which have direct influence on how rural populations appropriate and use natural resources.

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MA6 Social movements and democracy:
Social capital and civic engagement in LA

Course lecturer: Prof. dr. Michiel Baud
Period: 7 February - 2 May 2012
Time: Tuesdays 14.00 – 17.00 hours
Course load: 10 EC's
Max. number of participants: 15
Entry requirement: Passive knowledge of Spanish

Registration form

Latin America is a continent where the political - lo político - pervades every aspect of society. This has led social scientists to focus their attention over the last decades on social and political movements. As a consequence, there has been a tendency to underestimate the associational character of many social movements in which individual members build networks of solidarity and civic engagement. It also led to ignoring social organizations which do not directly aim at resource mobilization or political objectives. This course aims at understanding and analysing these two connected elements in Latin America. This will imply two exercises. First, we will try to understand the character of different types of movements and associations. Secondly, we will discuss to what extent we can look to social and political movements in different ways. To do so, we will critically look at the concept of social capital and discuss to what extent it can help us to answer the questions above.

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MA7 The Cuban Revolution Today:
Rebirth, Stagnation or Demise?

Contact: 020 525 3498 / jcorrales@amherst.edu
Period: 8 May – beginning of July 2012
Tuesday 13.00 – 16.00 hours (Study groups)
Course load: 6-10 EC’s
Max. number of participants: 40

Registration form

In 2011, Cuba announced the most significant economic reforms since the 1960s, the so-called Lineamientos (Guidelines). For Cuban officials these reforms should reinvigorate the Cuban Revolution and guarantee its survival well into the future. For others, the reforms represent at best cosmetic change, at worse, a type of regression, that in neither case will help save the Revolution. This course seeks to provide a context to study the origins and prospects of Cuba’s current political economy. We will first look at the history of the Revolution (the causes of the insurrection, the way a socialist state was built, the regime’s achievements and setbacks, etc.) and then discuss the current political and economic environment affecting Cuba (the rise of new societal actors, and the role of external actors such as Venezuela, China, the EU, the Vatican, and of course the United states, especially Miami exiles). We will also look at the question of regime change (or lack of) by drawing comparisons to the Arab Spring and other cases. While we will no doubt focus significantly on Cuba, this course should be seen as more than just a study of a rare case in comparative politics.

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