PROGRAM – Conference of Latin American Geography 2024
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
May 22-26, 2024
This preliminary program is subject to change, please check back before the conference begins.
Tuesday May 21
Come by to see old friends and make a few new ones.
Wednesday May 22
Light breakfast provided.
Chancellor, University of Puerto RicoDean of Social Sciences, University of Puerto RicoKristen Conway-Gomez, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CLAG Executive DirectorDavid Salisbury, University of Richmond, CLAG Chair
Dr. José Hernández AyalaDirector, Climate Research CenterSonoma State University
Chair: Mary Finley-Brook – University of Richmond
Chair: Adriana Zuniga-Teran – University of Arizona
Chair: Rebecca L Clouser – Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Organizer(s): CLAGLASGLatinXCaribbenan Specialty GroupGraduate School Representatives
Chair: CLAG
Panel Description: This panel will discuss mentoring in the context of geographical research in Latin America.
Panelists: TBD – TBD
Light lunch provided with concurrent poster session.
Organizer(s): Cynthia Pope – Central Connecticut State University Sarah Blue – Texas State University
Chair: Cynthia Pope – Central Connecticut State UniversityDiscussant: Sarah Blue – Texas State University
Organizer(s): Rafael R. Díaz Torres – University of Puerto Rico at Humacao
Chair: Rafael R. Díaz Torres – University of Puerto Rico at Humacao
Organizer(s): Andrea Marston – Department of Geography, Rutgers University Matthew Himley – Illinois State University Aaron Malone – Colorado School of Mines
Chair: Matthew Himley – Illinois State UniversityDiscussant: Aaron Malone – Colorado School of Mines
Organizer(s): David S. Salisbury – University of Richmond Delaney Demaret – University of Richmond Christian Abizaid – University of Toronto
Chair: David S. Salisbury – University of Richmond
Coffee and cookies 🙂 – sponsored by the Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Organizer(s): Mariela Mendez – University of Richmond Alicia Diaz – University of Richmond Mary Finley-Brook Patricia Herrera
Chair: Mariela Mendez – University of RichmondDiscussant: Ruth Santiago – Comité Diálogo Ambiental
Panel Description: “Feminist Decolonial Resistance: Climate Justice for Puerto Rico” builds upon and expands work carried out for the past year by faculty in the Departments of Latin American, Latino & Iberian Studies, Geography, the Environment & Sustainability, and Theatre & Dance at The University of Richmond. In the Spring of 2023, four classes engaged in research around the environmental and financial crisis in Puerto Rico and staged a theatrical procession to both raise awareness and mobilize collective resistance. Anti-colonial pedagogy in prestigious universities reveals alarming contradictions when academic institutions do not assume responsibility for the social and ecological costs of consumption in the face of our shared climate crisis. Patterns of coloniality narrow our vision to create an environmentally just future. University of Richmond’s partnership with AES Corporation and the environmental and human rights violations caused by their coal-fired power plant in Puerto Rico provides us with a template both to discuss decolonizing, climate justice activist practices in Puerto Rico and beyond and to imagine worlds otherwise.
Panelists: Mary Finley-Brook – University of RichmondMariela Méndez – University of RichmondAlicia Díaz – University of RichmondPatricia Herrera – University of Richmond
Organizer(s): Madelaine C. Cahuas – Geography, Environment & Society, University of Minnesota
Chair: Adam Bledsoe – University of Minnesota
Organizer(s): Andrea Marston – Department of Geography, Rutgers University Matthew Himley – Illinois State University Aaron Malone – Colorado School of Mines
Chair: Aaron Malone – Colorado School of MinesDiscussant: Andrea Marston – Rutgers University
Organizer(s): David S. Salisbury – University of Richmond Delaney Demaret – University of Richmond Christian Abizaid – University of Toronto
Chair: Christian Abizaid – University of Toronto
TUNA Universidad de Puerto Rico
Join us for drinks and a CLAG slideshow. First drink is free!!
Thursday May 23
Light breakfast provided.
Organizer(s): Brad D Jokisch – Geography, Ohio University Lindsey Carte – Arizona State University
Chair: Diego Pons – University of Denver
Chair: Matthew C LaFevor – University of Alabama
Organizer(s): Matt Himley – Illinois State University
Chair: Matt Himley – Illinois State UniversityDiscussant: Andrea Marston – Rutgers University
Panel Description: Participants in this book review panel will engage in a discussion on Andrea Marston’s Subterranean Matters: Cooperative Mining and Resource Nationalism in Plurinational Bolivia (Duke University Press, 2024), including by identifying and elaborating on the book’s key themes; shedding light on its contributions to the study of Latin American geography, and reflecting on its significance for their own scholarship.
Panelists: Gisselle Vila Benites – Clark UniversityGabriela Valdivia – University of North Carolina at Chapel HillZoe Pearson – University of WyomingAaron Malone – Colorado School of MinesAdrienne Johnson – University of San FranciscoJoel Correia – Colorado State University
Chair: Mayra A Román Rivera – University of Tennessee – Knoxville
Organizer(s): Brad D Jokisch – Geography, Ohio University Lindsey Carte – Arizona State University
Chair: Lindsey Carte – Arizona State University
Chair: Eric Carter – Macalester College
Organizer(s): Eugenio Arima – University of Texas at Austin F García-Oliva – UNAM-Morélia A González-Rodríguez – UNAM-Morélia A Denvir – WRI-USA M.C Latorre-Cárdenas – UNAM-Morélia K.R Young – Univ. Texas at Austin R.M Torres – Univ. Texas at Austin
Chair: Eugenio Arima – University of Texas at Austin
Chair: Timothy B Norris – University of Miami
Light lunch provided with concurrent poster session.
Organizer(s): Roxana Escobar Ñañez – University of Toronto
Chair: Madeleine Carhuas – University of MinnesotaDiscussant: Madeleine Carhuas – University of Minnesota
Organizer(s): Lucas J. Belury – University of Arizona Elise B. Arellano-Thompson – University of Arizona
Chair: Nicholas L. Padilla – Western Michigan University
Organizer(s): Andrea Marston – Department of Geography, Rutgers University Matthew Himley – Illinois State University Aaron Malone – Colorado School of Mines
Chair: Andrea Marston – Rutgers UniversityDiscussant: Matthew Himley – Illinois State University
Organizer(s): David S. Salisbury – University of Richmond Delaney Demaret – University of Richmond Christian Abizaid – University of Toronto
Chair: Joel E. Correia – Colorado State University
Coffee and cookies 🙂 – sponsored by the Universidad de Puerto Rico.
Organizer(s): Brad D Jokisch – Geography, Ohio University Lindsey Carte – Arizona State University
Chair: Brad Jokisch – Ohio University
Chair: Fiona J Gladstone – Fairleigh Dickinson University
Chair: George Lovell – Queens University, Canada
Organizer(s): David S. Salisbury – University of Richmond Delaney Demaret – University of Richmond Christian Abizaid – University of Toronto
Chair: Andrea Baudoin Farah – Colorado State University
Speaker: Ruth SantiagoComité Diálogo AmbientalEarth JusticeQueremos SolWhite House Environmental Justice Advisory CouncilCLAG Honors and Awards
Friday May 24
Light breakfast provided.
Chair: Francisco Lara – Arizona State University
Chair: Luis Sanchez – Universidad de los Andes
Organizer(s): Joel E. Correia – Colorado State University Gabriela Valdivia – University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Aaron Bobrow-Strain – Whitman College Andrea Marston – Rutgers University Matt Himley – Illinois State University Andrea Baudoin-Farah – Colorado State University
Chair: Joel E Correia – Colorado State University Discussant: Joel E. Correia – Colorado State University
Panel Description: This session convenes experts in political ecology, environmental justice, Indigenous politics, and extractivism to engage and discuss Joel Correia’s book Disrupting the patrón: Indigenous land rights and the fight for environmental justice published by University of California Press in April 2023. Each panelist will share critical feedback followed by an author response and open conversation.
Book abstract: In Paraguay’s Chaco region, cattle ranching drives some of the world’s fastest deforestation and most extreme inequality in land tenure, with grave impacts on Indigenous well-being. Disrupting the Patrón traces Enxet and Sanapaná struggles to reclaim their ancestral lands from the cattle ranches where they labored as peons—a decades-long resistance that led to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and back to the frontlines of Paraguay’s ranching frontier. The Indigenous communities at the heart of this story employ a dialectics of disruption by working with and against the law to unsettle enduring racial geographies and rebuild territorial relations, albeit with uncertain outcomes. Joel E. Correia shows that Enxet and Sanapaná peoples enact environmental justice otherwise: moving beyond juridical solutions to harm by maintaining collective lifeways and resistance amid radical social-ecological change. Correia’s ethnography advances debates about environmental racism, ethics of engaged research, and Indigenous resurgence on Latin America’s settler frontiers.
The book is available open access here: https://luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.151/.
Panelists: Gabriela Valdivia – University of North Carolina Chapel HillAaron Bobrow-Strain – Whitman CollegeAndrea Marston – Rutgers UniversityAndrea Baudoin-Farah – Colorado State UniversityMatt Himley – Illinois State UniversityJoel Correia – Colorado State University
Organizer(s): Zoe Pearson – University of Wyoming Adrienne Johnson – University of San Francisco Case Watkins – James Madison University
Chair: Zoe Pearson – University of Wyoming
Organizer(s): Catherine Nolin – University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) Vaclav Masek – University of Southern California
Chair: Catherine Nolin – University of Northern British Columbia
Chair: Nikolai A. Alvarado – University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Organizer(s): Andrea J. Marston – Rutgers University
Chair: Andrea J. Marston – Rutgers University
Panel Description: In partnership with CLAG, the University of Florida Press has launched a new book series, Critical Geographies of Latin America and the Caribbean. This series seeks to explore Latin America and the Caribbean through the multiple lenses of geography: environment, land, people, culture, history, economy, and politics. Conceptualizing the region broadly, and even working to destabilize Latin America as a political category, this series explores how political, economic, social, and ecological structures intersect with race, gender, class, sexuality, and other critical social categories. The confluence of these interactions at various scales will show how the region is defined by ruptures and barriers, but also by rhythms, continuities, and fluidities of time and space that lend to new political possibilities. Series editors Joel Correia, Andrea Marston, Aaron Strain, and Joaquín Villanueva discuss their perspectives, goals, experiences, and recommendations for prospective authors interested in creating new opportunities and new narratives in the study of Latin American and Caribbean geography.
Panelists: Joel Correia – Colorado State UniversityAndrea Marston – Rutgers UniversityAaron Strain – Whitman CollegeJoaquín Villanueva – Gustavus Adolphus CollegeAdam Bledsoe – University of Minnesota
Organizer(s): Zoe Pearson – University of Wyoming Adrienne Johnson – University of San Francisco Case Watkins – James Madison University
Chair: Adrienne Johnson – University of San Francisco
Lunch on your own.
3-hour walking tour of Old San Juan that ends with a free drink at a local pub. Dr. Rafael Díaz (UPR Humacao) and Dr. Carlos Guilbe (UPR Rio Piedras) will lead this tour of the urban and historical geography, including gentrification, informal economies, and urban poverty of San Juan. Stops will include a diversity of barrios including La Perla.
Saturday May 25
Meet at: Plaza de Colón, Viejo San Juan
10-hour day trip with private tour buses and lunch included. This tour led by Dr. Carlos Guilbe (UPR Rio Piedras) will cross the island (Cordillera Central) to the southern coast (Ponce and Guayama) to visit a coal-burning power plant, impacted landscapes, mangrove management areas, and food production sites, while exploring the south’s physical and historical geography through a climate justice & political ecology lens.
10-hour day trip with private tour buses and lunch included. This tour led by Dr. Carlos Guilbe (UPR Rio Piedras) will cross the island (Cordillera Central) to the southern coast (Ponce and Guayama) to visit a coal-burning power plant, impacted landscapes, mangrove management areas, and food production sites, while exploring the south’s physical and historical geography through a climate justice & political ecology lens.
Meet at: Plaza de Colón, Viejo San Juan
6 hour day trip led by Suley Cruz (Geographer, who works in Finca El Josco Bravo) and Dr. Katia Aviles that will visit a community agriculture project to discuss issues of food security, agriculture capacity building, and gendered development. A lunch consisting of food from El Josco Bravo will be included.
6 hour day trip led by Suley Cruz (Geographer, who works in Finca El Josco Bravo) and Dr. Katia Aviles that will visit a community agriculture project to discuss issues of food security, agriculture capacity building, and gendered development. A lunch consisting of food from El Josco Bravo will be included.
4-hour vuelta of the local transportation systems in the greater San Juan Metropolitan Area with lunch included. E. Nieves (Lecturer UPR Rio Piedras) will take interested folk on a geographic journey of the complex and dynamic peri-urban public transportation system with a stop for an authentic Puerto Rican lunch.
