Youth Activism & the Power of Solidarity by Patricia Oliart

BIO: I graduated in Sociology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. My Masters degree is in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and I hold a PhD in Human Geography at Newcastle University. For most of my career I have been a lecturer, consultant and researcher on issues related to gender, ethnicity, cultural change, and education in urban and rural areas in the Andes and Amazonia. I have continued my interest in those topics but about a decade ago I began to work on urban youth cultures and activism. My current research integrates the analysis of cultural production and practices among youth collectives with theories of social change and political subjectivities, performance studies and youth studies.

More here: Activism in Latin America - Who we Are - Newcastle University (ncl.ac.uk)

Rights-based philanthropy in Brazil: Aspiration or Contradiction?

ABSTRACT: Elite philanthropy in Brazil has historically been characterised by corporate and paternalistic tendencies, and philanthropic foundations have traditionally preferred to operate their own programmes rather than make grants to NGOs and activist social movements. Broadly speaking, this depiction still holds true, as philanthropy becomes ever more entrenched within new financial logics of social and ‘impact’ investment (McGoey 2014) and broader global trends towards the financialisation of development (Blowfield and Dolan 2014; Mawdsley 2018). Over the past few years, however, small signs of change have emerged within this landscape. Brazil has seen the creation of a handful of philanthropic foundations with an explicit focus on grant-making to human rights NGOs. In parallel, the community philanthropy movement has grown in Brazil, in which community actors collaborate around the design and funding of grassroots social projects. This movement is challenging the definition of philanthropy as a solely elite practice (Hopstein (ed.) 2018), and a few wealthy philanthropists have been key in supporting it.

Finally, in the current political climate in which President Bolsonaro has described Brazilian activism as a form of ‘terrorism’, some elite individuals have stepped up to fund activists in areas such as women’s and LGBT rights. These are all – make no mistake – small and rare exceptions to the ongoing rule, but they are examples of new forms of possible engagement between elite philanthropy and rights-based social activism in Brazil. This paper asks how academics should position themselves in relation to these developments. Should such examples be seen as relevant and hopeful signs of elite resistance, and if so what possibilities might exist for academics to support this bridging of philanthropy and social activism? Or is this an idealistic and naïve aspiration, in a context in which rights-based philanthropy among the Brazilian elite is best understood as a contradiction in terms?

The question Jessica posed to the audience was:

Does philanthropy have a role to play in promoting human rights in Latin America, and if so, how can social movements best engage with it?

BIO: Jessica Sklair is a Research Fellow at the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies, University of Cambridge and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London. Her research explores processes of financialisation and the changing role of the private sector in Brazilian development. She has also carried out research on elite philanthropy in Brazil, exploring philanthrocapitalism in the Brazilian context, the role played by philanthropy in aiding succession processes in family businesses and the recent emergence of philanthropic 'impact investing' and new forms of social finance.

Crisis, dependency and social struggles in Argentina after the neoliberal impasse

ABSTRACT: Popular movements in Latin America are rising again against the consequences of dependent capitalism in the current era of transnational capital. Years of neoliberalism and neo-developmentalism have deepened the chains of exploitation, precarization and plundering of our lives and of nature.

The advancement of transnational capital though super-exploitation of labour (‘productive’ and ‘reproductive’) and nature has turned economic crisis in a permanent situation in popular territories. The ample nature of the crisis includes the crisis on reproduction and care as well as the growing ecological crisis. Current social and political unrest are at the fore. Social resistance is now being led by movements of peasants, indigenous and original communities, as well as by the feminist movement and the ecological movements. The working class as we used to know it has been mostly absent, at least in its traditional forms and organizations. New forms of capital extractivism and plundering (saqueo) are advancing in territories at the frontiers. They advance in the physical frontiers (such as places were gold, lithium or petroleum are) but they also attempt to advance in the frontiers of everyday life. Through new social policies, and financial instruments, capital is increasing its ability to exploit the so-called ‘productive’ labour, but especially now forms of reproductive and care labour in our neighborhoods and communities.

We will discuss these processes in the light of Argentina’s experience within Latin American current events. We will attempt to provide a unified understanding of the crisis, social upheaval and current political transition. We will attempt to show how debates within social movements today are creating a new analytical framework for radical action that confronts normalization of social struggles and partial and disputed integration within the dependent capitalist state. How will social movements articulate a radical practice to confront so-called ‘progressive’ governments? Have radical social movements been able to create new political practices to struggle against new forms of dependent capitalism? How do new forms of exploitation of bodies and nature create novel State policies that are able to partially neutralize social resistance? Does the incorporation of demands into State institutions (new Ministry of Women in Argentina, for example) defuse the radicality in social movements?

The questions posed to the audience by Mariano were:

How will social movements articulate a radical practice to confront so-called ‘progressive’ governments? How do they differ from the approach to the struggle against right-wing governments?

BIO: Mariano Féliz. Argentina. BA in Economics (UNLP), MA in Economic Sociology (UNSAM), PhD in Economics (Paris XIII/Nord) and PhD in Social Sciences (UBA). Professor at UNLP. Researcher from CONICET at the Centro de Investigaciones Geográficas of the Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (CIG-IdIHCS) of CONICET and UNLP. Member of the DECkNO (Centre for Decolonising Knowledge in Teaching, Research and Practice; University of Bath). Fellow of the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies (IRGAC) of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. Part of the Work Group “Cuerpo, territorio y feminismo” of CLACSO. Activist of the research/action collective Al Borde (construyendo pensamiento indisciplinado). Works on themes related to marxian dependency theory, critique of development, and social movements. He is also an organiser in Latin America is Moving-Collective.

Photography and Resistance in Brazil

During the 1970s and 1980s Brazil was experiencing a gradual political reopening and the emergence of an alternative press questioning the military dictatorship. At the same time, a socially critical documentary photography flourished. This photography has a plurality of approaches related to militancy for human rights, dealing with narratives about hunger, violence against the dispossessed and race and gender minorities, transformation and exploitation of urban and rural territory. But they are also about the resistance to these processes. The images denounced the injustices and indignities promoted by the military dictatorship and were directly involved in its overthrow in 1985. With time, they also formed a visual culture representing that moment for the progressive side, being constantly present in Brazilian and international academic studies.

This presentation aims to discuss the work of three woman photographers that were a fundamental part of this movement in that period. Claudia Andujar photographed and fought for the recognition of the Yanomami lands. The indigenous issue was strongly censored by the dictatorship, whose official position supported the occupation and exploitation of their lands. Rosa Gauditano’s work in those years approached political demonstrations against the dictatorship, specially workers' movements and trade union strikes, as well as gender issues and the black movement in São Paulo. During the same period, Nair Benedicto portrayed the abuses suffered by young offenders under the custody of the São Paulo State. Children and adolescents endured mistreatment perpetrated by the same people who should have protected them. The work of these three photographers was marked by politically engaged, contentious visions of the dictatorship. They have significant influence on the social imaginary and Latin American visual culture, having over time become representatives of the activist agenda for minorities and human rights, which marked the final period of the military dictatorship in Brazil.

The questions by Erika to the audience:

To what extent do you think photography can cause a real political and social impact?

And the study of photography?

BIO: Erika Zerwes has a PhD in History (Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP, Brazil, 2013), with a FAPESP scholarship and a CAPES funding for a séjour doctorale at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales de Paris - EHESS, France, and a Postdoc at the Museum of Contemporary Art of University of São Paulo, MAC-USP, Brazil, funded by FAPESP. She is the author of the books Tempo de Guerra: cultura visual e cultura política nas fotografias dos fundadores da agência Magnum, 1936-1947 and Cultura Visual, imagens na modernidade, which was a Jabuti Prize finalist in 2019.