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Category: Conviviality and Inequality

This series features selected publications from the MECILA Working Papers that address questions concerning conviviality and inequality from Latin American perspectives. The series collects interdisciplinary contributions from MECILA fellows and alumni and other members of the network connected to the centre. The Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (MECILA) focuses on processes of negotiation, legitimation, contestation, and transformation of existing hierarchies as they take place in everyday interactions and within institutions. The historical, environmental, economic, social, and political contexts in which these interactions occur, as well as their representations, are of central relevance.

A aerial view of a jungle landscape, on the left lie lush green trees while on the right are brown, dead trees.

Conviviality and Inequality / Series

La Vida Simple (Simple Life): A Maroon Vision on Development

By Nataly Castillo Bennett. Global practices shaped by colonization and modernity have disrupted humanity’s intrinsic connection to nature, resulting in ecological and social crises. Rooted in the colonization of the Americas, colonial inhabitation imposed exploitative relationships with nature and marginalized communities, laying the foundation for the imperial mode of living. Superficial frameworks like green capitalism fail to address this crisis, perpetuating colonial ecocide. In contrast, Afro-Ecuadorian Maroon communities, through la vida simple – a philosophy grounded in African traditions and marronage – offer transformative insights for ecological sustainability and climate justice.

An abstract mosaic consisting of shapes and also depictions of families.

Conviviality and Inequality

Articulating Differences and Inequalities

By Raquel Rojas Scheffer. Housewives’ and domestic workers’ organisations have been present in Latin America for decades. These groups not only perform – at least to a certain extent – the same kinds of tasks. They also tend to share an interest in the valorisation of domestic work: If this activity were recognised as work, housewives could claim retirement rights, while domestic workers would be granted the same labour rights as any other worker. But even while sharing the historical burden of care work, there are other social hierarchies that interrupt the common experience of these women and hinder the creation of alliances between them.

Neoclassical museum building with tall columns and steps leading to the entrance.

Conviviality and Inequality

Restitution and Postcolonial Justice. A Dialogical Approach

By Julia von Sigsfeld. Confronting a history of dispossession and alienation, and of accumulation thereby, restitution is generally seen as a recognition of and corrective to historical injustice or, rather, as an element thereof. Demands for the return of museologized objects, belongings, and ancestral remains are thus deeply connected to and indicative of struggles over postcolonial memory and justice. Not only do these demands surface suppressed histories and memories in public discourse, but they also expose the violence and Eurocentric foundations of heritage practices and museums.

A person swimming in a lake, eyes closed.

Conviviality and Inequality

Liquid Conviviality in Chilean Documentary Film. Dynamics of Confluences and Counter/fluences

By Berit Callsen. Guided by the concept of liquid conviviality, referring to the conflictual connectivity, interrelation, and interaction between human and nonhuman actors in aquatic ecosystems, this article focuses on the staging of aquatic, and especially fluvial, agency in three examples of recent Chilean documentary films produced between 2008 and 2021. Building on theoretical insights in the blue humanities and material ecocriticism, it scrutinizes the filmic strategies and procedures that frame water as an active player.

A storefront with glass windows displaying various media items and signs including 'Video Clasicos Disco' and multiple brand names.

Conviviality and Inequality

Convertir a la música en un negocio

Ornela Boix focuses on music fairs in Latin America over the last 15 years, aiming to contribute to an understanding of the formation of music markets that transcend national borders, against a backdrop of transformation in the music industry driven by digitalisation. Drawing on a theoretical framework that emphasises the social, convivial and unequal nature of the art worlds and their markets, and an ethnographic approach, the text situates the emergence and development of these fairs historically at the intersection of processes of change within the music industry’s business model, public cultural policies, cultural activism, Latin American regionalism and the relationship between art and capitalism. The article specifically examines the role of educational activities (workshops, conferences) in the production of narratives about the contemporary music industry, which have consequences for the ways in which actors behave and for the very constitution of music markets. In this way, the article outlines the cultural dimension of these markets.

Five people sitting at a table behind to banners that read "Mothers of May: Against state terrorism" and "Stop the violence against Black youth".

Conviviality and Inequality

Militarization as Conviviality: How Women Define and Resist Gendered Everyday Violence and Discipline in Brazil

By Izadora Xavier do Monte. This contribution looks at Brazilian security dynamics to understand how gender intersects with Brazilian perceptions of peace, war, security, and militarization. Women in Brazil have insisted that militarization deeply shapes their everyday interactions, their living together with others, affecting how they carry out their roles and live their lives as women. It’s not just a question of police violence; it’s about armed men everywhere – whether police, hired gunmen for landowners, or others. This widespread militarization is failing to makewomen feel safe, and gender is vital to understand what makes for that dynamic.

A green wall in front of a avenue lined by trees and skyscrapers.

Conviviality and Inequality

Transnational Organized Crime and Hybrid Governance in Latin America. The Case of Forced Disappearance in Mexico

By Marcial A. G. Suarez. The article aims to introduce the concept of hybrid governance as a form of mediation between tri-dimensional political actors: the state; violent non-state actors (VNSAs), and society. Since the 1980s, Latin America has been experiencing the emergence of several VNSAs with governance capacities, originating from distinct factors among which are economic, political, and social crises, as well as intrastate conflicts. We explore the strategies developed in Mexican civil society to confront forced disappearance perpetrated by both organized crime and the state.

A woman wearing a mask is holding a baby.

Conviviality and Inequality

Care, Inequalities, and Conviviality. The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Berlin, Buenos Aires and Mexico City

By Raquel Rojas et al. Care seemed to have become one of the most urgent issues of our time amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This empirical analysis focuses on the cases of Argentina, Mexico, and Germany, based on original surveys conducted in the largest city of each country: Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Berlin. The analysis shows that different models of care provision translated into heterogeneous levels of support for the population during the crisis. Unequal access to care services determined, to a large extent, the unequal impact of the pandemic and its containment measures on specific social groups.

Two men fighting, wearing jiu-jitsu gear.

Conviviality and Inequality

Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as a Marker of Whiteness and Anti-Blackness. Embodying Inclusive Conservative Conviviality in Rio de Janeiro

By Raphael Schapira. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) practitioners often perceive their sport as a discrimination-free space, stating: “On the mats, everyone is equal”. However, this belief in equality can sometimes obscure the fact that BJJ has been predominantly associated with Whiteness. This paper explores how the Gracie and Fadda lineages – crucial for the sport’s development – have distinctively constructed BJJ as a White sport, each for their own purposes. Schapira argues that Whiteness and anti-Blackness are constitutive elements linking the appeal of Bolsonaro and neoconservativism with communities typically expected to instead support other political forces more interested in progressive socio-political change.

Conviviality and Inequality

Truths That Hurt: Socialist Affects and Conviviality in the Literary Journalism of Gabriel García Márquez and Ryszard Kapuściński

By Joanna M. Moszczynska. The paper deals with narrative journalistic texts by Gabriel García Márquez and Ryszard Kapuściński about their journeys to the Eastern Bloc and Latin America, respectively, during the first two decades of the Cold War. García Marquez’s crónicas and Kapuściński’s reportages deliver ideas on socialism(s) and engage in affective workings of a travel experience through representations of convivial socialist spaces. By elaborating a philological approach towards socialist affects, the paper concentrates on affective narrative attunements to lived historical moments and aims at comparing both authors as they raise social and political issues pertinent to the conjuncture of the Cold War. The convivial aspect refers here not only to living together with and knowledge production about the Other as represented in the text, but also to the methodological approach with intercultural sensitivity and transregional and transnational awareness of the aesthetic developments in the hybrid field of global literary journalism.