News

We are pleased to award the 2024 Latin American Geographies Research Group (LAGRG) Undergraduate Dissertation Prize to Christopher Weber of Durham University, for the dissertation “The Indigenous Other: Critically examining the construction of Bolivian indigeneity within contemporary climate change governance discourse”. The winner receives a £100 prize.

The reviewers found that it was “an excellent study of climate change governance through critical discourse analysis” with “a critical and well-elaborated set of arguments about processes of ‘othering’ in policy discourse”.

A summary of Christopher’s research can be read on the LAGRG blog https://lagukinfo.wixsite.com/lag-uk/post/bolivian-indigeneity-and-climate-change-governance-discourse

We also would like to highly commend two other entries*:
Catalina Wadham, University College London (2023/24) for “Reimagining Utopia: Contemporary Latin American artists in London”. Reviewers stated that it was a very strong dissertation, well grounded in Latin American geographical ideas and thought.
Iñaki Manosa, University College London (2022/23) for “Taming the “growth machine”: The case of the Encircled Garden in El Faro, Comuna 8”. Reviewers noted that it was an innovative and well-designed project addressing cutting-edge issues centred on green infrastructures, informal housing, urban inequality and the right to the city in Latin America.

LAGRG will open the call for nominations to the 2025 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize later in the academic year.

*Due to industrial action and the marking assessment boycott at some British universities at the end of the 2022/23 academic year, we accepted nominations for the last two years.

We are organizing webinars to discuss collaborative research methodologies that are particularly relevant to Latin American geography as well as other academic disciplines. We invite articles about experiences of collaborative work with specific groups or social movements. We expect the webinars to focus on two methodologies: Participatory Action Research (PAR) and ethnography.

Deadline for abstract submission: 20th November. Send to lagrg.events@gmail.com

Decision communication date: 1st December

Date of first webinar: 14th December at 15:00-17:00 (UK), 16:00-18:00 (Europe), 12:00 (Arg/Bra), 10:00 (Mex)

We are pleased to award the 2022 Latin American Geographies Research Group (LAGRG) Undergraduate Dissertation Prize to Sophia Grijalva of the London School of Economics, for the dissertation ‘An analysis of how 'fog catchers' in Pamplona Alta, Peru have affected water security and collective life’.

The panel found this a ‘highly original piece of research on a fascinating theme’ with an appropriate methodology and strong analysis. The findings are clear and well-evidenced showing that community-based use of fog catchers is an effective tool of water governance, but only under specific circumstances and does not compensate for a lack of state-provided infrastructure

A summary of Sophia’s research can be read on the LAGRG blog with versions in English https://lagukinfo.wixsite.com/lag-uk/post/fog-catchers-in-lima and Spanish https://lagukinfo.wixsite.com/lag-uk/post/atrapanieblas-en-lima. The winner receives a £50 voucher worth of books kindly sponsored by Routledge.

We would like to highly commend two other entries:

Grace Murray of the University of Cambridge for ‘‘Unearthing’ religion - Exploring the intersection of Anglican missionaries and Indigenous land rights in the Argentine Chaco’. The study skilfully applied the concepts of territoriality and frontier to provide a critical analysis of the activities of faith-based organisations in contested territories.

We also commend Chloe Smith of Aberystwyth University for ‘Volcanic Hazards of Tungurahua, Ecuador, and the Presentation of Risk to Tourists in Baños’. The dissertation presents a critical analysis on how information regarding volcanic hazard is presented to tourists by engaging with the mapping and presentation of accommodation in a particular site.

LAGRG will open the call for nominations to the 2023 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize later in the academic year.

We are delighted to invite you to the first edition of the Latin American Geographers in the UK (LAG-UK) seminario permanente, which will take place online on the 27th of October 2022 at 4pm (UK time).

This seminar will host Dr. Jessica Hope (University of St Andrews) and Prof Murat Arsel (Erasmus University Rotterdam) in conversation about Infrastructure and Latin American Environmental Geographies.

The zoom link for next meeting is:
https://bath-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/97833508571?pwd=NmJVdzJjdVFRQUp5eldISjNSWXBnZz09

Meeting ID: 978 3350 8571
Passcode: 570271

We are pleased to invite you to the Latin American Geographies Working Group AGM 2022. The AGM will take place online next Wednesday 7 September, 2.00–3.30pm (UK time). Everyone is welcome to join, with no registration required. You can join the meeting via the following link:

Topic: Latin American Geographies Working Group AGM
Time: Sep 7, 2022 02:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://lse.zoom.us/j/88281865563

The AGM is your opportunity to hear about LAGWG’s recent activities and contribute to discussions about how to take the group forward over the next year and beyond. The AGM is a trilingual space, in which participants may speak in English, Spanish or Portuguese.

I would also like to announce that the roles of Comms Officer and Events Officer on the LAGWG Committee are both currently available. If you are interested in taking up either of these roles, would like further information about them, or want get more involved with LAGWG in any other capacity, please drop me a line before Wednesday.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Annual General Meeting of the Latin American Geographies Working Group will take place on Friday 3 September, 1-2.30pm (UK time).

The meeting will be held online and all are welcome to attend. (We have scheduled the AGM to coincide with the RGS conference, but conference attendance is not necessary).

You can register for free via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/latin-american-geographies-working-group-agm-tickets-165416305623.

The LAGWG AGM is your chance to hear about our activities over the past year and our current projects, as well as contribute to defining the Working Group's objectives and plans for the coming year. We will share the AGM agenda with attendees prior to the meeting.

We are inviting candidates to stand for the role of Social Media Officer on the LAGWG committee. If you would like to stand, or wish to hear more about what the role entails, please contact Matthew Richmond at m.a.richmond@lse.ac.uk by Friday 27 August 2021. Please also get in touch if you have any other questions or suggestions prior to the AGM.

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Latin American Geographies Working Group of the Royal Geographical Society welcomes the submission of nominations to the prize of best undergraduate dissertation. The prize is open to any undergraduate student enrolled at a UK institution in a degree programme in geography or closely related disciplines.

The dissertation should be an excellent piece of original work and submitted in the most recent academic year. Latin America needs to be central to the theoretical and/or empirical focus.

Submissions should be sent by the student’s department (one entry per department) in either Word or PDF files alongside the student’s contact details post-September. Please include “LAG UG dissertation submission” as the subject header.

The winner will receive £50 in book vouchers kindly offered by Routledge. The awarded dissertation’s author will feature in our website through blogpost entries and a video, in which will have the opportunity to present the research findings. It represents a remarkable opportunity to disseminate the author's work.

Submissions to: gabriel.silvestre@ncl.ac.uk

Deadline: 30 July 2021

The Latin American Geographies Working Group (LAGWG) of the RGS-IBG is receiving submissions for session sponsorship for this year’s Annual International Conference (31st August- 3rd September).

The organisers are planning a conference with in-person and online options. They will confirm by early April 2021 whether the planned in-person elements can go ahead. The conference will, unfortunately, not be able to facilitate 'hybrid' sessions (i.e. remote presenters cannot take part in an in-person session).


The conference will be chaired by Professor Uma Kothari (University of Manchester), with the theme ‘Borders, borderlands and bordering’. We therefore welcome sessions relating to this theme but it is not compulsory. Sessions sponsored by LAGWG will automatically be accepted for the conference, receive wider publicity, and will be listed alongside other LAGWG sponsored sessions in the conference programme.


Sessions may take the form of presented papers, panels, practitioner forums, discussions, workshops, or something else. Innovative formats are encouraged, particularly for online sessions which make use of uploading 'on-demand' content in advance of sessions to be viewed ahead of time. Please get in touch if you have any questions about submitting an innovative format.

To submit a session for sponsorship please email Cordelia Freeman (c.freeman@exeter.ac.uk) with the following:
Session title and abstract (max. 400 words)
Names and affiliations for the convenor/s
Format of the session
Whether the session will be online or in-person
Whether you are seeking sponsorship from any other research groups
How many sessions you are requiring sponsorship for (max. 2)
The deadline to apply for sponsorship is Friday 5th February 2021. We will notify you of the outcome as soon as possible after this date.


We look forward to receiving your submissions, in the meantime please get in touch with any questions.

The Latin American Geographies Working Group (LAGWG) of the RGS-IBG is receiving submissions for session sponsorship for this year’s Annual International Conference (31st August- 3rd September).

The organisers are planning a conference with in-person and online options. They will confirm by early April 2021 whether the planned in-person elements can go ahead. The conference will, unfortunately, not be able to facilitate 'hybrid' sessions (i.e. remote presenters cannot take part in an in-person session).


The conference will be chaired by Professor Uma Kothari (University of Manchester), with the theme ‘Borders, borderlands and bordering’. We therefore welcome sessions relating to this theme but it is not compulsory. Sessions sponsored by LAGWG will automatically be accepted for the conference, receive wider publicity, and will be listed alongside other LAGWG sponsored sessions in the conference programme.


Sessions may take the form of presented papers, panels, practitioner forums, discussions, workshops, or something else. Innovative formats are encouraged, particularly for online sessions which make use of uploading 'on-demand' content in advance of sessions to be viewed ahead of time. Please get in touch if you have any questions about submitting an innovative format.

To submit a session for sponsorship please email Cordelia Freeman (c.freeman@exeter.ac.uk) with the following:
Session title and abstract (max. 400 words)
Names and affiliations for the convenor/s
Format of the session
Whether the session will be online or in-person
Whether you are seeking sponsorship from any other research groups
How many sessions you are requiring sponsorship for (max. 2)
The deadline to apply for sponsorship is Friday 5th February 2021. We will notify you of the outcome as soon as possible after this date.


We look forward to receiving your submissions, in the meantime please get in touch with any questions.

Metodologías de la Pandemia
Una mesa redonda sobre investigaciones innovadoras durante la pandemia

Con éxito se desarrolló el 1 de Diciembre, la mesa redonda ´Metodologías de la Pandemia´
Encuentra acá el link al video de la mesa redonda

https://vimeo.com/491169102/c53a71209a

Descripción:
La pandemia de COVID-19 ha generado grandes desafíos para los investigadores de las ciencias sociales en América Latina. En esta mesa redonda, LAG invita a tres investigadoras a presentar sus proyectos, compartiendo lo que aprendieron y cómo están innovando sus metodologías durante la pandemia.

Panelistas:
Marcia Vera-Espinoza, Queen Mary University of London
Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin, Universidade Federal do Pará
Hayda Josiane Alves, Universidade Federal Fluminense

Fecha y hora:
Martes 1 de diciembre, 2020
17hs UK / 14h BR/AR / 11h MX

Metodologías de la Pandemia
Una mesa redonda sobre investigaciones innovadoras durante la pandemia

Con éxito se desarrolló el 1 de Diciembre, la mesa redonda ´Metodologías de la Pandemia´
Encuentra acá el link al video de la mesa redonda

https://vimeo.com/491169102/c53a71209a

Descripción:
La pandemia de COVID-19 ha generado grandes desafíos para los investigadores de las ciencias sociales en América Latina. En esta mesa redonda, LAG invita a tres investigadoras a presentar sus proyectos, compartiendo lo que aprendieron y cómo están innovando sus metodologías durante la pandemia.

Panelistas:
Marcia Vera-Espinoza, Queen Mary University of London
Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin, Universidade Federal do Pará
Hayda Josiane Alves, Universidade Federal Fluminense

Fecha y hora:
Martes 1 de diciembre, 2020
17hs UK / 14h BR/AR / 11h MX

The Latin American Geographies Working Group (LAGWG) warmly invites you to our AGM
15h-16.30h GMT Thursday September 3rd (11h-12.30h Buenos Aires/Brasilia)

To attend, please register in advance:
https://lse.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrdO6qrDwtGd3toUnewgBu82vOZS_EXvgb

The AGM will provide an opportunity to get to know current committee members, get involved in LAGWG (including on the committee - if you would like to stand for a position on the committee please contact s.halvorsen@qmul.ac.uk, S.Marzi@lse.ac.uk, and m.a.richmond@lse.ac.uk to register your interest) and share ideas and thoughts on the future direction of the group. We will also be discussing our newly developed set of values, which we will be sharing with this email list shortly. All our welcome to attend.

Provisional agenda:
1. Welcomes and intros
2. Brief summary of activities over last year
3. Brief summary of finance
4. Discussion of new LAG statement of values (to be circulated to email list prior to AGM)
5. Election of committee members.
6. Becoming a trilingual community: discussion
7. Upcoming events and ideas for next year
8. AOB

COVID-19 has hit the Latin American region particularly hard, with sharp geographical inequalities defining its impact. As racial and colonial justice takes centre stage in political debates worldwide, we take stock on the intersections between afro-latinx, black and indigenous geographies and the unfolding impacts of, and responses to, the COVID-19 crisis in Latin America.

Hosted by the Latin American Geographies in the UK working group (LAGWG) and chaired by Alejandro De Coss Corzo. LAGs first online seminar was a successfully tri-lingual event, moving between English, Spanish and Portuguese.

If you were unable to attend or want to know more, you can find the complete seminar video in the following link: https://vimeo.com/438624172/2b9dc15433

Under the exceptional context of social unrest and state oppression affecting the Chilean people, we as critical and urban geographers and researchers, cannot stay on the side of the injustices and abuses.

LAG-UK session: Latin American Geographies in the UK – where next?
(RGS-IBG conference, London, Thursday 29 August 2019)

LAG-UK Newsletter 2019 - Find out what are we up to