Why should you incorporate Latin American Studies into your course? What are some pedagogical considerations? And what are some topics (and resources) that you can use? This presentation aims to provide pedagogical and content considerations to college and upper-level high school faculty who'd like to include more content on this region of half a billion people.

1. Beyond Crops and Coups:
Teaching ―Latin America‖
Rosana Resende
University of Florida

2. NEW WORLD TO ONE WORLD

3. Rise of Latin America
―We
are creating a new world economy‖

4. discussion café
• ―I’m hoping to learn more about _____
so that I can incorporate Latin
America more in my teaching‖
• ―Well, have you thought about…?‖

5. harvest

6. Control of Learning
• Ownership of knowledge leads to
generation of wisdom
• Meet students where they are, show
them where they can go
• Connections, connections, connections

7. Social Movements
For something or against something, big or small

8. Example and Tie-ins
• Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo
Argentina, gender, political resistance, military
dictatorships, politics of memory
• Landless Peasants Movement
Brazil, land distribution, social inequality, textbased rights, role of the state

9. U.S. Imperialism
Latin American history is U.S. history

10. Example and Tie-ins
• United Fruit Company
Central America, monoculture, labor,
displacement, dependency theory,
capitalism, Cold War
• Central American Wars
Cold War, Reagan, genocide,
massacre, guerrilla warfare, School of
the Americas

11. Tourism
―Shiny, happy People holding hands…‖

12. Example and Tie-ins
• Sexual Tourism
Gender, race, economic inequality, sex
work, agency/structure, exoticization
• Performativity vs. Authenticity
Othering, ―noble savage,‖ ―noble poor,‖
commodification of culture,
poverty porn

13. Intersectionality of Race, Class,
and Gender
Compounding Sites of Inequality

14. Examples and Tie-In
• Female Headed Households
Poverty, gender, migration, war and
conflict, urbanization, social
vulnerability, social capital
• Affirmative Action in Brazil
Race relations, social inequality,
educaitonal policy, legal framework,
comparative policies, text-based rights

16. Pedagogical Considerations
• WHY you should incorporate LAS into
your teaching
– New World, One World
– Their World, Your World
• Dos
• Don’ts

17. New World
• ―First peoples‖
• European colonization, genocide,
slavery
• Colonies feeding the metropoles
• Transatlantic slavery
• Immigration
• Multiracial, multicultural societies

18. One World
• Prepare students for an increasingly
urban, mobile, globalized world,
• American Century over? A new world
order,multipolarity
• Mother Earth: Environmental concerns,
resource management and
exploitation

19. Their World
• Students of Latino background
• Latin Americans keep coming in to the
US, Latino influence
• Broadens perspective on ethnic
politics in the US
• Tourism destination for U.S.

20. Your World
• Site to explore tensions between:
development and conservation,
tradition and innovation, urban and
rural, integration and sovereignty
• Wealth of information
• Variety of accessible formats
• Many issues, many settings

21. Dos
• Clarify what is included in ―Latin
America‖ in your unit
• Highlight diversity within and between
countries
• Show the good, the bad, the ugly
• Films, films, films (clips, clips, clips)

22. Don’ts
• Use only U.S. or European literature-Include Latin American scholarship in
your sources!
• Avoid difficult topics. Discomfort can
breed growth.
• Always conflate one topic with one
country. Move beyond the stereotype
• Exoticize. Just don’t.
• Describe a monolithic culture—explore
the tensions

23. APPENDIX

24. Worth Reading
• Walter Mignolo on the idea of Latin
America: http://waltermignolo.com/onthe-idea-of-latin-america/
• Eduardo Galeano: Open Veins of Latin
America.
• Noam Chomsky on U.S. Presidents and
policy toward Latin America
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/201001
05.htm

25. Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
• Website:
• http://www.madres.org/navegar/nav.ph
p
• Journal article: FJ Bosco, 2001. Place,
space, networks, and the sustainability of
collective action: the Madres de Plaza
de Mayo. Global Networks 1 (4) 307-329.
• BBC:
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latinamerica-17859539

26. Landless Peasants
• Website in English:
http://www.mstbrazil.org/
• Journal article: Wilder Robles, 2001. The
Landless Rural Workers (MST)
Movement in Brazil. The Journal of
Peasant Studies 28 (2) 146-161
• Frontline (PBS):
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rou
gh/2005/12/brazil_cutting.html#

27. United Fruit Company
• Journal article: Marcelo Bucheli. 2008.
Multinational corporations, totalitarian
regimes and economic nationalism:
United Fruit Company in Central America,
1899–1975. Business History 50 (4) 433-454.
• Video: Journey to Bananaland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSPDw
HATajE
• La United Fruit, Pablo Neruda (Eng)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGmfm
_C-T5o

28. Central American Wars
• Journal Article:
KarineVanthuyne. 2009. Becoming Maya? The
Politics and Pragmatics of "Being Indigenous" in
Postgenocide Guatemala. Political and Legal
Anthropology Review. 32 (2) 195-217.
• Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2006/05/latinamerican-roots-us-imperialism
• Al Jazeera: An Unfinished Revolution.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2009/07/
2009717143152209821.html
• Noam Chomsky, Militarizing Latin America.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20090830.htm

29. Sexual Tourism
• Journal article: Denise Brennan. Women
Work, Men Sponge, and Everyone
Gossips: Macho Men and Stigmatized/ing
Women in a Sex Tourist Town.
• Site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnoR
67x0n2s
• Film: Heading South (Sur le Sud) or
Cinderellas, Wolves, and a Charming
Prince (Cinderelas, Lobos, e um Príncipe
Encantado)

30. Performativity vs. Authenticity
• Journal Article: Bianca Freire-Medeiros.
2011. ―I went to the City of God‖: Gringos,
guns and the touristic favela. Journal of
Latin American Cultural Studies: Travesia.
20:1, 21-34.
• Web: Favela Tourism
http://www.favelatourismworkshop.com/
• Audio: Latin American Perspectives
Podcast Tourism, Gender, and Ethnicity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ZV
CH79A64

31. More on Tourism
• Erve Chambers. 2005. Can the
Anthropology of Tourism Make Us Better
Travelers? NAPA Bulletin 23, pp. 27-44.
• Andrew Canessa. 2012. Gender,
Indigeneity, and the Performance of
Authenticity in Latin American Tourism.
Latin American Perspectives. 39:109-115
• Florence E. Babb. 2012. Theorizing
Gender, Race, and Cultural Tourism in
Latin America : A View from Peru and
Mexico. 39 (6): 36-50.

32. Female-Headed Households
• Journal Article. 2002. Maxine Molyneux.
Gender and the Silences of Social
Capital: Lessons from Latin America. 33
(2):167-188
• Site: Commission on the Status of Women:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/c
sw/
• Film: AmoresPerros. (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245712/

33. Affirmative Action Brazil
• Journal Article. Augusto dos Santos
Sales. 2006. Who Is Black in Brazil? A
Timely or a False Question in Brazilian
Race Relations in the Era of Affirmative
Action? Latin American Perspectives
33 (4): 30-48.
• Video. PBS Wide Angle: Brazil in Black
and White.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g
29P3-xj7GQ