When
Where
The Center for Latin American Studies is partnering with the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry this spring to host the Charlas con Café Speaker Series – a weekly space to hear lectures from a wide variety of experts and discuss topics relevant to the Latin American region, Fridays from 1-2 pm (unless otherwise specified).
Save the Date: Intervention in Venezuela & Regional Impact from Multiple Perspectives
Join us virtually on Feb. 20 for a rich conversation with different experts to examine the current state of Venezuela following the January 3 events. Through multiple perspectives, speakers will offer a deeper understanding of Venezuela’s evolving context.
Moderator:
Marcela Vásquez-León, Director & Professor, Center for Latin American Studies
Presenters:
Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Director for the Andes, Washington Office on Latin America
Gimena Sanchez is a human rights and anti-racism advocate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). This independent organization promotes human rights and justice in the U.S. foreign policy framework in the region, where she directs work in Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina.
She previously directed the Haiti work. For over 19 years, she has brought to DC the voices of people affected by U.S. policies in the region: Afro-descendants, Indigenous people, women, LGBTQ+, trade unionists, victims, and displaced persons. Her work focuses on dismantling illegal armed groups, promoting peace agreements and anti-racism measures, protecting social leaders, seeking justice for atrocities, and defending labor rights. Before WOLA, she worked with Peace Brigades International, where she provided unarmed physical accompaniment to defenders and communities during the conflict in Colombia. She worked on displacement in Africa, Asia, and Latin America as an advisor to the UN Representative for Internally Displaced Persons, Francis M. Deng, from South Sudan at the Brookings Institution. Before that, she worked on ethnic issues, migration, refugees, environmental racism, and toxics for the U.S. Committee for Refugees, the Red Cross, UMCOR, the New York Mayor’s Office, and the New York State Attorney General’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Javier Corrales, Professor of Political Science, Amherst College
Javier Corrales is Dwight W. Morrow 1895 professor of Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1996. Corrales's research focuses on democratization, presidential powers, ruling parties, democratic backsliding, populism, political economy of development, oil and energy, the incumbent's advantage, foreign policies, and sexuality. He has published extensively on Latin America and the Caribbean.
His latest book, Autocracy Rising (Brookings Institution Press, fall 2022), discusses the transition to authoritarianism in Venezuela since the 2010s, with comparisons to Colombia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. It argues that deep democratic backsliding is determined by party system features, variations in autocratic legalism, institutional capture, and innovations in the use of coercion.
Flo Tomasi, Journalist, Telemundo 33 Sacramento
Flo Tomasi is a community driven Franco-Venezuelan journalist and master’s graduate in bilingual journalism at the University of Arizona, specializing in reporting on conflict zones and border dynamics across the Americas and the Caribbean. Fluent in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and Italian, she brings a global understanding of migration to her storytelling.
Register here: https://arizona.zoom.us/meeting/register/Vzmd-Zb8SRGHkZPanE9_eQ