Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean group showcases University scholarship throughout the region

The seventh annual Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean (PLAC) conference, organized by an interdisciplinary group of faculty, staff, and students, showcased public and community engaged scholarship across the region and its diaspora.

Originally organized through the School of Nursing, the group was convened in 2015 to gather the wide array of experts on Latin America from all disciplines across the University. PLAC facilitates and strengthens interdisciplinary engagement with Latin America and the Penn community, says Catherine Bartch, associate director of the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CLALS). The Center has housed PLAC since its inauguration in 2021.

“PLAC really is a network,” Bartch says. “The conference provides a space that makes it easier to meet and learn about each other’s work in Latin America and with the Latinx diaspora. Hopefully, synergy develops to foster new cross-disciplinary research, in the case of today, community engaged scholarship.”

“Above all,” says Jorge Téllez, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, and CLALS director, “the conference allows scholars across schools and centers to connect with each other. The beauty of the conference is that a day of stimulating intellectual conversations turns into a series of plans for future collaboration that otherwise would be more difficult to achieve. The PLAC conference is a celebration of the diverse and far-reaching work that the Penn community does in relation to Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The keynote, “Indigenous Worldviews of Political Participation,” was delivered on Oct. 10 in Spanish by Yaku Pérez Guartambel, an Ecuadorian Indigenous rights activist, lawyer, and political leader. 

Guartambel discussed the rights of nature in the Andes and Amazon, including his involvement in the suspension of mining projects. South America has often been targeted for its natural resources, he said, with colonial governments extracting gold, silver, and other materials. He urged attendees to work towards a post-extractive ecology that includes Indigenous communities.

“There is no democracy without participation and no participation without social consciousness,” he said. “It is important to have conviction that represents the community so that together we can build a promising future.”

The conference continued on Oct. 11 with panels and presentations at Perry World House. After welcoming remarks from Téllez, the conference included six panels: Empowering Voices: Building Networks across Latin America, Designing New Methodologies, Engaging Local Communities and Scientists in Environmental Challenges, Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Perspectives in Engaged Scholarship, Ethical and Political Dimensions of Engaged Scholarship, and Amplifying Youth Voices: Collaboration in Educational Research and Practice, involving participants from the Graduate School of Education in addition to four students from area high schools.

When organizing the conference, the group looked at research across the University, says Carolina Angel Botero, a CLALS postdoctoral fellow who was the academic coordinator of the conference and helped to organize it. “The task was to understand through which lenses we would look at community engagement and what is particular about Latin American research.” In Latin America, she says, researchers are often motivated to collaborate and produce research that has an impact in the community as well as an impact in the academy.

In the first panel, two participants discussed their Penn-Mellon Just Futures project Dispossessions in the Americas, with Tulia Falleti, the Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of Political Science, presenting on The Extraction of Bodies, Land, and Heritage from La Conquista to the Present, a $5 million, five-year project, and Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, a historian of the African Diaspora in Colonial Latin America and the Caribbean who is affiliated with CLALS, on “a hemispheric curriculum,” where students learn about the impact of dispossession on the lives, health, and spiritualities of Indigenous people and those of African descent.

Richard Leventhal, professor of anthropology and executive director of the Penn Museum’s Cultural Heritage Center, discussed his work with community museums in Mexico and Belize. Local communities want to see the results of research, Leventhal said, and he worked with organizers in Central America to develop exhibitions that speak to their histories and dispel common myths about the Maya as a “disappeared” people.

Bartch joined co-authors Rita A. Hodges, associate director of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, and Yadira Pinilla of the Organization of American States presenting on their publication, “Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean: Civic Engagement and the Democratic Mission.” The book focuses on education for democracy and citizenship in the Latin American and Caribbean region, using concrete examples from diverse institutions across the region, Hodges said.

In the panel on Engaging Local Communities and Scientists in Environmental Challenges, three presenters discussed their diverse research. Associate professor of anthropology Kristina Lyons spoke about a “juntanza,” or gathering, for the Andean-Amazonian watersheds in Colombia; Clara Secaira, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, addressed responses to the algae overgrowth in Guatemala’s Lake Atitlan; and Laura Tamayo Quintero of the Perelman School of Medicine discussed the public health response of an internet-based system for surveillance and elimination of triatomine insects, which carry disease.

Panel moderator Jesús Luis Zúñiga IV said, “These are three success stories where community-led engagement has made a difference.”

The 7th PLAC conference was organized by the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies in collaboration with Penn Nursing, Penn Libraries, the Graduate School of Education, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, and the School of Arts and Sciences. The conference was funded by Penn Global, and hosted by Perry World House. The keynote speech was also supported by the Andrea Mitchell Center as part of their Other Ideals? Future of Democracy series.