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

In 2008, Ecuador emerged at the forefront of the movement to recognize Nature as a subject of law, becoming the first, and to date the only, country to recognize and protect the rights of Nature at the Constitutional level. At the time of writing, several recent judgements of the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court, the highest body of constitutional interpretation, have significantly developed the content of the rights of Nature provisions recognized within the Constitutional text. However, these cases have not received extensive consideration by English-speaking academia. Pursuant to this, the primary purpose of this talk is to offer a critical evaluation of the main judgements that have developed the content of the rights of nature in Ecuador, focusing in particular on the judgements concerning the violation of the rights of Nature of forests, mangroves, rivers, and wild animals.

Andrés Martínez Moscoso is Associate Professor in Law, Director of the Institute of Legal Research of the College of Jurisprudence and Executive Secretary of ICON•S, International Society of Public Law. His main lines of research are Water Law; Environmental law; and Public Management. He is national and international consultant on issues related to water management and environmental law and participated to international research projects with the PNUD, Cornell University and European universities (such as the Antwerp University and the KULeuven) on topics of circular economy, waters, ecosystem of urban life and food supply chain. He is also a member of the World Commission on Environmental Law (CMDA) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Co. Sponsor by by Dept. Of City & Regional Planning & Dept of Global Dev.

Free expression is a human right and cornerstone of a democratic society.

The U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to free expression, but not all those who reside within the country’s borders have equal protection. Some migrants to the U.S. are leaving situations where their rights were threatened, and they embrace the principle of free expression. Those same migrants may find their rights circumscribed when they arrive in the United States.

What can be done to counter threats to free expression for immigrants? How can we protect civil liberties and the law while also protecting human rights and building a diverse, inclusive, and safe society? When is it appropriate to deny visa applications because of a person’s political views?

Our panel of experts will explore these questions in a discussion moderated by Stephen Yale-Loehr (Cornell Law School). This event is hosted by Global Cornell and its Migrations initiative. Learn more about how Global Cornell supports global freedom of expression and Scholars Under Threat.

Panelists

Cecillia Wang, Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Austin Kocher, Research Assistant Professor, Syracuse UniversityBeth Lyon, Associate Dean for Experiential Education, Clinical Professor of Law, and Clinical Program Director, Cornell Law School Gautam Hans, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School

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

Co-sponsored by Einaudi's Democratic Threats and Resilience Initiative

After being governed by left-wing populism for most of the 21st century, Ecuador elected right-wing Guillermo Lasso as its new president in 2021. This presentation explains the juncture that brought Lasso to power, thanks to the formation of an anti-populist coalition that agglomerated various heterogeneous sectors. It also analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of this anti-populist coalition, both in the electoral contest and in the exercise of power.

Paolo Moncagatta is Associate Professor of Political Science at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, in Quito, Ecuador, where he also serves as Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities. He obtained his PhD in Political and Social Sciences from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona. He also collaborates as a Research Fellow at the Research and Expertise Centre for Survey Methodology (RECSM) of Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His research focuses on Latin American politics, citizen attitudes toward democracy, democratization, ideology (and ideological polarization), and electoral behavior.

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

For generations, the Afro-Caribbean islanders from the Archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia had regularly migrated to and from Central America and other islands in the Caribbean Sea. By the middle of the twentieth century, waves of migrants from mostly new locales in mainland Colombia and even as far as the Middle East transformed the tiny Colombian-administered islands' economy, society, and culture. Drawn to newfound opportunities due to the opening of the free port and promotion of tourism in San Andrés, these international and national migrants served as unintentional yet willing partners to state efforts to integrate the islands administratively, economically, and socially within Colombia. Drawing on ethnographic studies from the period, Colombian newspaper articles, and oral histories available in the collections at the Banco de la República Casa Cultura in San Andres Island, I trace how the rise of new aviation technologies and the creation of the free port facilitated an uneven integration of the island into the Colombian nation. While the free port strengthened administrative ties and contact between mainland Colombians and islanders, it failed to integrate the majority of native islanders who retained an oppositional stance against Colombian authorities and national projects. Unlike other studies on this topic, this paper gives equal attention to the experiences of migrants and native islanders.

Dr. Sharika Crawford is the inaugural Speedwell Professor of International Studies and Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Her primary research focuses on modern Latin America, specifically, Colombia and the interstitial places in the circum-Caribbean. In 2021, the Association of Caribbean Historians commended her first monograph The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making, published by the University of North Carolina Press, an Honorable Mention from its Elsa Goveia Prize in the Caribbean History. Additionally, she has published articles and essays in the Global South, Historia Crítica, International Journal of Maritime History, Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, Latin American Research Review, and the New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. Some of her current projects include a co-edited volume titled Understanding and Teaching Modern Latin American History, which is under contract with the Harvey Goldberg Series at the University of Wisconsin Press, and a second monograph-in-progress examining the social, political, and environmental histories of twentieth-century the Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia.

"iSpraak: A Platform for Second Language Pronunciation Instruction, Assessment, and Research"
Dan Nickolai
Associate Professor of French and Director of the Language Resource Center, Saint Louis University

This presentation will showcase the latest feature developments to the iSpraak platform. This free online tool incorporates multilingual Automatic Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech technologies to both model and assess pronunciation in 36 different languages. Now generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, iSpraak has significantly expanded on its previous feature set and has adopted new tools for learners, teachers, and researchers.

Bio: Dr. Dan Nickolai is an Associate Professor of French and the Director of the Language Resource Center at Saint Louis University. He has a professional and educational background in the fields of Computer Science, French, and Second Language Acquisition. His current work focuses on developing web-based applications that support language learning, assessment, and research. In addition to his roles at Saint Louis University, Dr. Nickolai serves as the President of the International Association for Language Learning Technology.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom (registration required). Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public. Campus visitors and members of the public must adhere to Cornell's public health requirements for events.

Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program (LACS) Seminar Series

Due to storm-related travel delays, Pablo Abufom’s talk has been rescheduled. It will now take place in conjunction with his previously scheduled talk at Autumn Leaves (115 E. State St.) at 6pm on Wednesday, February 14. (Previously, it had been scheduled to take place at 12:20 pm in Uris G08).

This talk will attempt to explain larger political and social phenomena on a global scale from the Latin American experience, considering there was a wave of revolts between 2018 and 2020, and then a deep dive into the rise of neofascism everywhere (Argentina is the most recent case), and how to find strategic lessons out of that situation and back to a new international antifascist movement.

Pablo Abufom is a philosopher, translator, director of Alternativa, Institute for Anticapitalist Studies and member of Movimiento Solidaridad, biology student and anarcho-communist in anarcho-capitalist times.