Members of the York community are invited to attend a seminar that will explore issues raised by the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“A Week after Inauguration: The Americas under the Aegis of Donald Trump – Brainstorming Impacts and Responses” is presented by the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC) and will run Jan. 25 from 1 to 5pm.
The location is to be determined.
Trump’s unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election has shaken the entire American continent. This seminar, happening five days after Trump’s inauguration, will allow us, as social scientists, to reflect on how an extreme right wing and populist administration in the White House and a Republican-dominated Congress will impact on the surrounding region.
How should we understand this wave of neoliberalism with a xenophobic and white nationalist face?
What should we make of Trump’s contradictions in the trade area – his populist aversion to trade agreements together with his fierce protection of corporate investor rights nationally and internationally?
How will his billionaire-driven Keynesian infrastructure drive impact on the US economy and will it spillover beyond its borders?
How “building the wall”, his isolationist tendencies and derision of the United Nations impact on hemispheric relations?
Will the obliteration of regulatory and environmental institutions in the United States have a domino effect across borders, for example, regarding the role of Canadian extractivist capital in Latin America?
What will the impacts of climate change denialism be on the region?
Will an administration of billionaires further embolden right-wing elite forces in Latin America that are already on the offensive and have already managed to oust left-leaning governments in several countries?
How will the configuration of domestic power bases shift in particular countries and will there be new opportunities for resistance and new roles for grassroots and subordinate forces?
Most importantly, how can we respond to the onslaught and reassert our hope for a better world?
Ricardo Grinspun
Confirmed speakers for this seminar include:
• Chair and Organizer Ricardo Grinspun, CERLAC and Department of Economics – Grinspun is associate professor of economics and international development studies and a fellow of CERLAC. He publishes on development and international trade, hemispheric integration, and Canada’s role in the Americas. He is co-editor of five books and one briefing paper series, as well as more than 70 scholarly articles, technical reports and other publications.
• Amanda Barrenengoa, visiting researcher from Argentina – Barrenengoa has a teaching degree in sociology and a masters degree from the Humanities and Educational Sciences Faculty at the National University of La Plata (UNLP) in Argentina. She is currently working on her doctorate degree from the Humanities and Social Science Institute, with financial support from CONICET (The National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigation in Argentina). Her workplace is in the Centre of Social-Historical Investigations for IdIHCS, UNLP, and CONICET. She is actively involved in CIEPE, which is a Centre for Political and Economic Investigations, dedicated to putting together a National and Latin American school of thought.
• Sara Koopman, researcher, City Institute – Koopman is a feminist political geographer who studies international solidarity and peace organizing, with a focus on North-South solidarity that builds alternative securities in the Americas. Her specific expertise is in this area of international accompaniment in Colombia, and she has been following the Colombian peace process closely.
• Judith Marshall, CERLAC – Marshall is a writer and educator who worked for two decades in the Global Affairs Department of USW. Since her retirement, she has become a CERLAC Fellow and continues to do research on popular initiatives to challenge the power of global mining companies.
• Leo Panitch, Department of Political Science – Panitch is editor of the Socialist Register and distinguished research professor emeritus at York University. He is co-author, with Sam Gindin, of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (Verso, 2012), which was awarded the 2013 Deutscher Memorial Prize in the U.K. Panitch is the author of more than 100 scholarly articles and nine books including Working-Class Politics in Crisis: Essays on Labour and the State (1986), The End of Parliamentary Socialism: from New Left to New Labour (2001) and Renewing Socialism: Transforming Democracy, Strategy and Imagination (2008).
• Viviana Patroni, CERLAC and Department of Social Science – Patroni is an associate professor in the Department of Social Science at York University. Her research focuses on the political economy of Latin America, the transformation of the world of work in this region since the 1980s, the centrality of labour struggles in shaping patterns of development and the transformation of labour markets in Argentina since the 1990s.
• Justin Podur, Faculty of Environmental Studies – Podur is an associate professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. He does research in two fields: landscape ecology and international politics. His politics research is on international conflicts and social movements. He is the author of Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake, and the UN Occupation with Pluto Press.
Co-sponsors of the event include Faculty of Environmental Studies, Department of Social Science, Department of Political Science, and International Development Studies Program.
For more, visit the CERLAC website at cerlac.info.yorku.ca/news or contact Ricardo Grinspun or Camila Bonifaz.