The Second Canning House Latin American Academic Forum

Laurence Whitehead opened the forum by establishing the goals of the gathering: to build connections between academics and the policy world, and to facilitate awareness of the work being carried out by Latin Americanists across the UK.

The British Ambassador in Mexico, Susannah Goshko CMG, addressed the forum. She explained the government’s international education strategy and its three pillars: to recruit high-quality students, to increase education exports, and to grow British soft power through education. She stressed the enthusiasm of the Mexican government and students for greater transnational education and research co-operation. This was followed by the OECD’s Valentina Patrini, who discussed gender inequality in Latin America.

The second session of the day discussed publications in Latin American studies. There was an overwhelming sense of rapid change, with digital journals and open access becoming more common. The academics stressed that original work will continue to prevail in book form.

As a demonstration of that, two participants shared their latest books. Gregory Thaler discussed his latest book, Saving a Rainforest and Losing the World. The work explores how Brazilian land sparing policies have, in turn, aggravated deforestation in Bolivia. Tom Long presented his book Republican Internationalism: Latin America and the Making of the Modern International Order, 1861-1919. This work explains the Latin American influence in forming the international order through creation and participation in early international organisations.

The day closed with the presentation of three articles. Christine Mathias discussed her work Envisioning the Future: Samuel Colt and the US-Mexico borderlands. She was followed by Pedro Mendes, who presented on the Prison Consensus in Brazil. Finally, Daniel Alves spoke about his work What explains Equity-Enhancing Reforms Under Centre-Right Governments? Evidence from Brazil.

The day was a valuable opportunity for knowledge exchange and connections between academics working on Latin America. We thank all the participants for their contributions.