Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Seminar Series

The mid-1960s ushered in an era of the belief in technological fixes for many social ills. Chief among these was a push to end global hunger using designer seeds that could yield more and thus feed more people. These seeds, developed in Mexican experiment stations, were disease resistant in addition to high-yielding. Yet to fully function these seeds needed fertilizer—lots of it. In the hurried quest to find a solution to end global hunger neither the social nor ecological impacts were considered. This talk examines how Mexico became a leading producer of wheat germplasm, how it was instrumental in finding a solution to end global hunger in the mid-twentieth century, and how the decades-long use of fertilizer to produce more food has had devastating consequences today, including contaminated groundwater and the health issues of local people.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga is Professor of the History of Science and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico at Harvard University. Her current research interests interrogate knowledge production and circulation between Mexico and India; medical professionals and social movements; and science and development projects in the twentieth century. She is currently the 2023-2024 Dibner Distinguished Fellow in the History of Science and Technology at The Huntington.

Her first book, Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects and the Making of the Pill, won the Robert K. Merton Best Book prize in Science, Knowledge, and Technology Studies from the American Sociological Association. Her second monograph, Sanitizing Rebellion: Physician Strikes, Public Health and Repression in Twentieth Century Mexico, examines the role of healthcare providers as both critical actors in the formation of modern states and as social agitators. Her latest book project seeks to re-narrate histories of twentieth century agriculture development aid from the point of view of India and Mexico.'

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

This Seminar will be in Spanish.

Muntz Metal, an alloy of copper and zinc, remains a significant find in shipwrecks across the globe. In the 19th century, its introduction revolutionized maritime safety for the British Empire navigation by providing a cost-effective sheathing solution. Created by the Muntz family in Birmingham, the commercialization of the muntz metal links local resources such as copper with global commerce. In the process, the history of Muntz Metal Company also brings light into scientific inquiry, commercial rivalry, and the global landscape.

Through maritime archaeology and historical sources, this presentation aims to delve into the study of Muntz Metal Company. By using commercial records, material culture, and historical testimonies, we seek to understand the repercussions that the development of Muntz Metal had into navigation and commercial expansion.

Andrés Zuccolotto is a doctoral candidate in History at the College of San Luis Potosí in Mexico. With a background as a conservator and maritime archaeologist at the Underwater Archaeology Directorate of the National Institute of History and Anthropology of Mexico, he specializes in the study and conservation of maritime heritage. His research is centered on fastening elements and copper-zinc alloy seathings of maritime vessels. Andrés has contributed to international research projects in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, furthering our understanding of maritime history and cultural preservation.

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.

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.

***

Livestream for National and International Viewers

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

***

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.

***

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.

Join us on Zoom to practice your Portuguese skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are are open to any learner, including the public.

Join Portuguese Conversation Hour on Zoom!

The Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Awards fund international fieldwork to help Cornell students complete their dissertations. Through a generous gift from Amit Bhatia, this funding opportunity annually supports at least six PhD students who have passed the A exam. Recipients hold the title of Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Scholars. All disciplines and research topics are welcome. The award provides $10,000 to be used by the end of the sixth PhD year for international travel, living expenses, and research expenses.

Register for the information session. Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students. To learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships, view the full calendar for spring semester sessions.

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

Co-sponsored: Department of History, Department of History of Art & Visual Studies

New colonial histories are being researched and written for the 1500s and 1600s to document the presence of people of the African Diaspora and explore their varied experiences in Iberia, the Peruvian highlands, and crossing the early Spanish Transpacific. Even where they were a minority of the local population or marginalized in the historical record, evidence of their actions and sometimes even their motivations can be located and analyzed.

Leo Garofalo is a History Professor at Connecticut College whose research draws attention to the central roles of Native Andeans, Afro-Peruvians, and enslaved and free Asians in shaping daily life within colonial cities. He uses the archives of the Spanish Inquisition in Madrid, Spain’s imperial bureaucracy in Seville, Rome’s Jesuit Archives, the local Church in Peru, and notaries and secular courts in Lima and Cuzco to uncover traces of the passage of the tens of thousands of West and Central Africans and hundreds of Asians forced into slavery and brought to the Andes in the 1500s and 1600s. His publications cover taverns, drinking, markets, seafaring and soldiering, the Afro-Iberian roots of Andean witchcraft, and the Atlantic, European, early trans-Pacific routes of the African and Asian Diasporas to the 16th- and 17th-century Andes. To support this research, he was recently awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship for Library Company of Philadelphia and a NEH Research Fellowship at the Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies of St. Louis University.