JISLAC: Joint initiative for the study of Latin Ameria and the Caribbean

About JISLAC

JISLAC is a body made up of the membership of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS), the Society for Caribbean Studies (SCS) and the Standing Conference of Centres of Latin American Studies (SC) (hosted by the Institute for the Study of the Americas). The purpose of JISLAC is to manage the activities of a jointly-held British Academy Learned Societies grant, which runs for five years, to support Latin American and Caribbean studies in the UK and Europe.

JISLAC will support postdoctoral research, regional seminars, two conferences, a web portal to aid communication, and travel bursaries and prizes, details of which are outlined below. The work of the grant began in April 2007. Contact details for JISLAC.

ACTIVITIES

CONTACT JISLAC

ENQUIRIES
All enquiries regarding JISLAC should be directed to the JISLAC Coordinator, email jislac@sas.ac.uk, tel 020 7862 8875.
Mailing address :
JISLAC
c/o ISA
31 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9HA

MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
Professor James Dunkerley (Chair of the Standing Conference)
Dr David Howard (Chair, SCS)
Professor Tony Kapcia (Past President of SLAS)
Secretary & Treasurer: Karen Perkins

TOP

RESEARCH GRANTS

JISLAC is seeking to award four £4,000 research grants annually over the course of the project for research projects on one of five themes:

  1. Histories of migration from the Western hemisphere and patterns of settlement (2007-08)
  2. The New Europe: legal and political conditions of contemporary Caribbean and Latin American diasporas in Europe (2008-09)
  3. The political economy of the contemporary relations between Europe and the Caribbean and Latin America (2009-10)
  4. Cultures and identities of the diasporic communities in transnational contexts (2010-11)
  5. Strategic and short-term impacts of emigration on sending communities (2011-12)

The following awards have been made to date:

 

Theme one:

  • Simon Smith and Jonathan Finch, Tracing the Contours of Settlement: Slavery and the Landscape of St Vincent, 1775-1833
  • Michael Goebel, Immigration and marriage patterns in urban and rural Uruguay, 1880-1930
  • Matthew Brown, European Migrants in Colombia and Venezuela, 1829-1860
  • Kenneth Morgan, British Transatlantic Slaving across National Boundaries: Volume and Distribution in the Americas, 1660-1807

Theme two:

  • Anastasia Bermudez Torres, Political Mobilisation of Latin American Migrants in Spain
  • Laurence Brown and Paulo Drinot, Racialisation and insurgent citizenship in the New Europe: A comparative study of Latin American and Caribbean migrants
  • Mette Berg, Diasporic Cultural Politics after Castro
  • Silvia Posocco, Fissured Legality and Affective States: Ethnographic Reflections on the ‘International Adoption’ Circuits between Guatemala and the United Kingdom

Grant recipients should report on their project using the grant report template by the end of March in the year after the award of the grant.

A call for applications for the third theme will be made in November 2008, with an expected application deadline of February 2009.

REGIONAL SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES

EIGHT SEMINARS on Latin America and/or the Caribbean will be held each year in various parts of the UK. The seminars are planned with the aim of fortifying Area Studies in our fields, especially when there exists limited or no strong institutional support structure and where colleagues are often scattered across discipline-based departments. The aim is to achieve broad regional coverage, and applications to host a seminar are welcome. The general format for each seminar is three speakers and a dinner, and an allocation of £1500 is made to each event. So far, the following seminars have been scheduled or held:

Date Details
Friday 11 May 2007 An Interdisciplinary Research Seminar on the Caribbean and its Diaspora, University of Durham
Programme
Organisers: Charles Gullick (c.j.m.r.gullick@durham.ac.uk) and Diana Paton (Diana.paton@ncl.ac.uk)
Wednesday 30 May 2007 Cultural Representations of Race, Gender and Class in Latin America and the Caribbean, University of Portsmouth
Poster | Programme
Organisers: Ann Matear (ann.matear@port.ac.uk) and Deborah Shaw (deborah.shaw@port.ac.uk)
Friday 22 June 2007 Brazil in the Northwest: an interdisciplinary seminar, University of Manchester
Programme
Organiser: Lucia Sa (Lucia.Sa@manchester.ac.uk)
Friday 5 - Saturday 6 October 2007 Latin America and the Caribbean: Writing, History & Creolization, University of St Andrews
Programme
Organisers: Tristan Platt (tp@st-andrews.ac.uk) and Mette Berg (mette.berg@st-andrews.ac.uk)
5 October 2007 An Interdisciplinary Research Seminar on the Caribbean and its Diaspora
University of Birmingham
Programme
Organiser: Sandra Courtman (s.courtman@sheffield.ac.uk)
7 December 2007 Religión en el México Moderno
Queens University Belfast
Programme | Abstracts | Poster
Organiser: Matthew Butler (m.butler@qub.ac.uk)
18 January 2008 An Interdisciplinary Research Seminar on the Caribbean and its Diaspora
University of Central Lancashire
Programme
Organiser: Alan Rice (arice@uclan.ac.uk)
22-23 February 2008 Regional Seminar of Latin Americanists
University of Bristol
Programme | Poster
Organiser: Matthew Brown (matthew.brown@bristol.ac.uk)
24 April 2008 Latin American Music, Migration and Diaspora
University of Newcastle
Programme | Poster
Organiser: Rosaleen Howard (R.E.Howard@newcastle.ac.uk)
25 April 2008 Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
Nottingham Trent University
Programme
Organiser: Clare Newstead (clare.newstead@ntu.ac.uk)
3 October 2008

Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
University of York
Programme
Organiser: Henrice Altink

17-18 October 2008 The Latin American City
University of Liverpool
Programme
Organiser: Lisa Shaw
14 November 2008 New Perspectives on Latin America
Aberystwyth University
Programme (PDF) | Flier (word)
Organiser: Lucy Taylor
11-12 December 2008 JISLAC Conference: Latin American Diasporas
University of London
Programme | Poster
Organiser: Cathy McIlwaine
Please register for the conference with olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk. It is free to attend.
30 January 2009 Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
University of Glasgow
Programme
Organiser: Alisdair Pettinger
26-27 February 2009 The World Food Crisis: Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives
Institute for the Study of the Americas, London
Organiser: Kate Quinn
March 2009 Latin American Art
University of Essex
Organiser: Valerie Fraser
TBA

University of Warwick
Organiser: Tony McFarlane

22 May 2009 Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
Newcastle
Organiser: Diana Paton
19 September 2009

Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
Leeds Metropolitan University

Organiser: Emily Marshall

October 2009 Cambridge
late November 2009 CEDLA/NALACS, the Netherlands
December 2009 Nottingham
January 2010 Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North

University of Liverpool
Organiser: Amanda Sives (amanda.sives@liverpool.ac.uk)

February 2010 Latin American Bicentennials: Gender, Ethnic Communities and the Nation
Swansea
Organiser: Mary Green
26 March 2010 Contemporary Argentina - Reading of the last decade
University of Edinburgh
Organisers: Fiona Mackintosh, Iona Macintyre and Carolina Orloff
8 April 2010

Old rebellions to serve the present : Construction of collective memories on slave rebellions in the Caribbean
University of Bordeaux
Organiser: Christine Chivallon

May 2010 Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North

Sheffield University
Organiser: Sandra Courtman (Sandra.courtman@sheffield.ac.uk)

September 2010

Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
University of Edinburgh
Organiser: David Howard (david.howard@ed.ac.uk)

Expressions of Interest in hosting a JISLAC seminar from 2010 onwards are currently being accepted (the deadline is Wednesday 5 November 2008).
Guidelines for organisers can be downloaded here (revised on 10 July 2007).
Seminar report forms are also available (revised on 21 October 2008).

11-12 December 2008 'STATE OF THE ART' CONFERENCE on Latin American Diasporas
The aim of the 2008 conference, which will be held in London, is to assess the current state of knowledge and to stimulate a critique of Latin American and Caribbean Studies in the European context. It will draw on current research output to assess contemporary scholarship in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from both American and European transatlantic perspectives. A list of speakers is now available, and the full programme will be available on this site soon. To register, please contact Olga.Jimenez@sas.ac.uk. Attendance is free.

2012 SHOWCASE CONFERENCE
The 2012 conference will showcase the best of the JISLAC-funded work undertaken on the research themes listed above, and to identify future opportunities for innovative scholarship in Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

A programme will be available on this site closer to the event.

WEB RESOURCES

Enhancement or development of a range of online resources, including:

TRAVEL BURSARIES AND PRIZES

A number of travel bursaries and prizes for postdoctoral researchers (or equivalent) are supported by JISLAC through the Society for Latin American Studies and the Society for Caribbean Studies. See the respective websites for details.

Any questions or problems with this site? Please contact the Site Administrator

Last updated 21 October 2008