Joshua Savala relates that the War of the Pacific (1879–1883) looms large in the history of Peru and Chile, and has been the structuring element in historical scholarship. In this talk, based on my recent book Beyond Patriotic Phobias, I explore points of collaboration and parallel histories shared between Peruvians and Chileans.

In particular, he highlights the overlooked cooperative relationships of workers across borders, including maritime port workers, doctors, and the police. These groups in both countries were intimately tied together through different forms of labor: they worked the ships and ports, studied and treated disease transmission in the face of a cholera outbreak, and conducted surveillance over port and maritime activities because of perceived threats like transnational crime and labor organizing. By following the movement of people, diseases, and ideas, Savala reconstructs the circulation that created a South American Pacific world. The resulting story is one in which communities, classes, and states formed transnationally through varied, if uneven, forms of cooperation.

About the Speaker:

Joshua Savala received his PhD in 2019 from the Department of History at Cornell and is currently an Assistant Professor at Rollins College, where he also serves as the Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. He specializes in the history of Peru, Chile, labor and working-class history, and oceans in history. He published his first book, Beyond Patriotic Phobias: Connections, Cooperation, and Solidarity in the Peruvian-Chilean Pacific World in 2022 with the University of California Press.