Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Seminar Series.

Co-sponsors: Departments of Communication, Information Science, and Science & Technology Studies

What does it mean to live in a “datafied” society? Life in media-saturated contexts implies the increasing transformation of people’s experiences, relations, and identities into data. To make sense of this process, scholars have focused mostly on how algorithms give rise to new forms of power and control. Alternatively, in this talk I ask not what algorithms are doing to society but rather what people are doing with algorithms. I present research on the use of such algorithmic platforms as Netflix, Spotify, and TikTok in an understudied region of the global south (Costa Rica). I develop the framework of “mutual domestication” by examining the personal relationships that have formed between users and algorithms as Latin Americans have integrated these systems into the structures of everyday life, enacted them ritually, participated in public with and through them, and thwarted them. In this way, I provide a new perspective on the commonalities and differences among users within a global ecology of technologies.

Ignacio Siles (PhD, Northwestern University) is a professor of media and technology studies in the School of Communication and researcher in the Centro de Investigación en Comunicación (CICOM) at Universidad de Costa Rica. He is the author of "Living with Algorithms: Agency and User Culture in Costa Rica" (MIT Press, 2023), "A Transnational History of the Internet in Central America, 1985–2000" (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) and "Networked Selves: Trajectories of Blogging in the United States and France" (2017, Peter Lang), along with several articles on the relationship between technology, communication, and society.

Diplomacy through Sanctions and Incentives

Although nuclear dangers have increased among the nine states that currently possess nuclear weapons, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other states so far has been relatively contained. States are adhering to the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The global nonproliferation regime has effectively combined the threat of sanctions for violations with incentives for compliance. The offer to ease sanctions has been an effective inducement in several cases of negotiated nonproliferation. What are the lessons of these experiences for taming nuclear dangers today?

David Cortright, visiting scholar, Reppy Institute and Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, will discuss the chapter “Incentivizing Nuclear Nonproliferation: Theory, Policy and Experience” by David Cortright and Thomas Biersteker for a forthcoming volume edited by Peter Wallensteen and Armend Bikaj of the Alva Myrdal Center for Nuclear Disarmament in Sweden.

About the Speaker
David Cortright is a visiting scholar with the Reppy Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies program and professor emeritus of the practice at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Cortright was the director of policy studies at the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and director of the institute’s Peace Accords Matrix project, the largest existing collection of implementation data on intrastate peace agreements.

Cortright has written widely about nonviolent social change, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. He has provided research services to the foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, and has served as consultant or advisor to agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Host
Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Lund Critical Debate

Climate change has a disproportionate impact on the world’s most vulnerable populations, yet climate crises also impact people across the full spectrum of wealth and power. How do we understand these varied impacts and design climate policy to maximize human well-being and justice on a global level?

As climate change accelerates, we see the rise of violent conflict and humanitarian emergencies in some places but not others. In some places but not others, we see disruptions in food security and forced migration. And around the world, debates rage about access to energy, the need to profit from valuable natural resources, and pressures to reduce extraction and consumption.

This year’s Lund debate from the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies explores how citizens and policymakers worldwide can act to increase justice in our shared climate crisis. The panel will discuss key issues surrounding societies, governments, business, and labor and ways to share responsibilities globally to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change.

How can we imagine new strategies for reshaping global trade and finance, national and transnational security policies, and environmental protections that go beyond political borders? Join climate journalist Kate Aronoff and climate security expert Joshua Busby (LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas) for a conversation on our climate’s state of emergency and how governments can help.

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Livestream for National and International Viewers

Can't join in person? Register to attend virtually at eCornell.

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Panelists

Kate Aronoff is a Brooklyn-based staff writer at The New Republic, covering climate and energy politics, and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. She is the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet and How We Fight Back (2021) and the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (2019). Aronoff serves on Dissent magazine's editorial board and the advisory board of Jewish Currents.

Joshua Busby is professor of public affairs in the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. His research focuses on climate change, global health, transnational advocacy movements, and U.S. foreign policy. Busby was principal investigator on two multimillion-dollar climate and security grants from the U.S. Department of Defense. He served as senior advisor for climate at the U.S. Department of Defense from 2021 to 2023. His newest book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (2022).

Moderator

Rachel Bezner Kerr is director of Einaudi’s Institute for African Development and professor of global development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She served as coordinating lead author for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sixth assessment report chapter on climate change impacts and adaptation of food systems.

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About the Debate

The Lund Critical Debate is a signature event of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Established in 2008, Einaudi's Lund debate series is made possible by the generosity of Judith Lund Biggs '57.