IV Spring Conference of the Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology

The IV Spring conference of the Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, held in Merida, Mexico, was a great success. The conference launched a new format for our section’s meetings, following the Board and membership’s decision to hold small meetings in a Latin American or Caribbean setting every two years. This format was chosen with the conviction that it encourages greater dialogue among the participants, fosters the possibility of collective publications, and, at the same time, creates awareness of the benefits of joining SLACA among anthropologists in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Merida, Mexico. Photo courtesy SLACA

The Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY) hosted the conference from May 20-23, 2013. The program featured 40 papers covering different issues from South, Central and North America, and the Caribbean. Presenters included senior and graduate student scholars from Chile, Mexico, the US, Canada, Holland and Germany. The Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicos and UADY co-sponsored the meetings, providing the auditorium, equipment, technicians, and coffee breaks. We profited from the help of several SLACA and UADY volunteers. The pre-selection of the papers by a conference committee, the plenary format, and the allocation of 20 minutes to each presenter, ensured the high quality of papers and dialogue. Eight exciting sessions were held at UADY’s Manuel Cepeda Peraza auditorium, with 20 minutes for discussion at the end of each. The conference offered a workshop where the editors of four anthropology journals, including Andrew Canessa from JLACA, presented the publications they oversee and explained the process of getting one’s work published. The other three journals are based in Mexico, including Temas Antropológicos, from UADY’s Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas. The well-attended workshop took place at a local restaurant serving Yucatecan food. A couple of special issues are already being proposed to academic journals as a result of the conference.

The highlight of the conference was the Michael Kearney Lecture in Responsible Anthropology by Carmen Bueno Castellanos from Universidad Iberoamericana. She discussed the different changes the world has experienced as a result of industrial processes. To illustrate these global transformations and attending theoretical paradigms, she utilized her studies of the construction industry in Mexico City and of car manufacturing in Japan, as well as her current work on car manufacturing plants in Mexico and crowdsourcing industrial design in Mexican universities.

The V SLACA Spring Meetings will take place in 2015 in Oaxaca, Mexico. Conference organizers are Ramona Perez (San Diego State U), Martha Rees (Agnes Scott C), J Carlos G. Aguiar (Leiden U) and Francisco Fernández Repetto (UADY). We hope you will join us in Oaxaca in 2015 for another productive and enjoyable conference!

To view more photos from the 2013 conference, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/slacaspringmeetings2013/afterword.

Please send any comments, suggestions, and ideas for future columns to SLACA AN Contributing Editor Ronda Brulotte at brulotte@unm.edu.

via Anthropology-News http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/05/24/iv-spring-conference-of-the-society-for-latin-american-and-caribbean-anthropology/