Latino/Latin America Fall Series begins with talk Sept. 18

Michael Wilson-Becerril will deliver the first lecture in the three-part Latino/Latin American Studies Fall Series at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, at room 204A, Gorecki Center, College of Saint Benedict.

Wilson-Becerril will speak on “Recognizing and Confronting Violence: The Evidence from Latin America.” His lecture is free and open to the public.

The theme of the series is “Social Movements in the Americas: Power, Rights and Resources.”

Latin America reportedly has the world’s highest rates of homicide, economic inequality, violence against women and killings of environmental activists. Most residents of these countries accept and even rationalize different forms of violence.

Remedying injustice and reforming violent conditions requires critical examination of how people give it meaning. Drawing from his research of Latin American politics and social movements, Wilson-Becerril will lead a discussion of the many faces of violence and violence as a discourse, and will provide an overview of regional social movements, and how those countries resist and transform the violent conditions.

Wilson-Becerril is an activist-scholar specializing in the political ecologies of violence and resistance in Latin America. He is also a visiting instructor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. His teaching interests include extractive industries, natural resources and development; peace and conflict studies; comparative politics of Latin America; and political ethnography.

Some of his written work has appeared in the Journal of Resistance Studies, Peace Review, Feminist Review, The Washington Post and many others.

He has done many presentations at selected universities and conferences to bring to light the violence going on in Latin America.

This Latino/Latin American Studies Fall Series continues at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 2 at the Centenary Room (room 264), Quadrangle Building, Saint John’s University with Leider Valencia. He will be presenting “Eradicating Peace: The Other Side of the Colombian War on Drugs.”

The series concludes at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23 at room 204C, Gorecki Center, CSB, with Elena McGrath. She will be presenting “I Am Too Poor to Fear Death: Indigenous Miners and the Defense of Natural Resources in the Andes.”