| Location | Email Address | Program Website |
|---|---|---|
| 8th Floor, The Kaneff Tower | cerlac@yorku.ca | yorku.ca/cerlac/about-cerlac/ |
York University offers formal accreditation at the graduate level of specialized knowledge about Latin America and the Caribbean. This is accomplished through the Graduate Diploma, which was established in 1986.
Special Facilities
In addition to the facilities normally available to graduate students, diploma candidates may use the Resource Centre and other facilities at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean including subscriptions to the LACYORK and GRADLACS listservs. There are regular graduate student seminars and students in the graduate diploma are welcome to attend any of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean seminars and workshops. There are also several informal gatherings every year.
Admission Requirements
To register for the diploma, a student must first be admitted to a graduate degree program (master’s or doctoral) at York University. Formal registration in the diploma normally takes place once a student’s program of study has been clearly defined. Application to enter is made to the Graduate Diploma Coordinator.
Diploma Requirements
Supervision
A supervisor, drawn from the list of affiliated graduate faculty members, advises each candidate and certifies that all diploma requirements have been satisfied.
Language
A working knowledge of any language and/or dialect needed for research in the region, to be assessed by the diploma supervisor or a designated Fellow of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean through an interview process. An attestation to this requirement being met will need to be submitted afterwards.
Research Outputs
Two research outputs (for example: films, dance works, websites, or written work including a major research paper, thesis, comprehensive examination, or dissertation) that include content relating to Latin American or the Caribbean (or their diasporas), subject to approval from the student’s graduate diploma supervisor. These outputs need to demonstrate a breadth of knowledge within the region or its diasporas. All outputs must be done at or through York University concurrently with the candidate’s graduate degree program, but not be derived from within the graduate diploma core course.
Current Relationship with the Region
Five to ten page statement on a student’s engagements with the social and cultural spaces and peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, or their diasporas as a way of contextualizing their commitment to research, communities, and/or academic networks in one of these regions. This requirement empowers students to articulate not only their “field” but also their relationship to it.
This piece of writing should include: 1) a nuanced description of the political complexities within which the student is researching, including at least three factors such as nation, immigration status, culture, race, colour, class, religion, sexuality, and gender; 2) a nuanced description of the student’s own positionality within those political complexities, in a way that attends to both the student’s relative empowerment and disempowerment within this particular political context; 3) a detailed exploration of how the student’s positionality within this political context might impact their research in both positive and negative ways and how they plan to account for this within their research and writing process; 4) a clear expression of the student’s intended long-term commitment to their research field (however they define it), whether that stretches into the past and/or forward into the future; and 5) an explicit desire for a reciprocal and respectful relationship with the people and places related to their research.
Completion of Graduate Diploma Core Course
Completion of the designated graduate diploma core half course in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Social Anthropology 5300 3.0: Convergences, Disparities, and Fault Lines: Research in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. This interdisciplinary course introduces students to debates and perspectives on Latin American and Caribbean Studies and links theory with practice in the field. Supported by numerous CERLAC Fellows from a range of disciplines, students from different graduate programs and areas of study collaborate on applied research projects.
For more information, contact CERLAC, York University, 825 Kaneff Tower, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3; (416) 736-5237; cerlac@yorku.ca.