On Friday, November 7, 2025, the Fall Research Symposium took place at Lucy Stone Hall A265 on the Livingston campus, bringing together graduate students— including recipients of research support— to share their ongoing work on topics related to Latin America and beyond. The event, organized by the School of Arts and Sciences, provided a vibrant interdisciplinary space for discussion, critique, and intellectual exchange.
The symposium opened with a welcome coffee, followed by three thematic panels that showcased a wide range of innovative research.
Panel 1: Indigenous Communities, Power, and Resources
Presentations in this session explored issues of state power, colonial legacies, land, and indigenous agency:
- Leonardo Calzada, Local Perspectives and Institutional Bricolage Around Conservation and Development: Sembrando Vida and the Maya Train in the Southern Yucatán Peninsula
- Sandra Acocal, The Indian Nobility in Central México in the Sixteenth Century: The Institution of the Noble House
- Nathan Darmiento, Seeing Like a (Mexican) State: Researching a Peripheral Zone in a National Archive
- Gilson Mateus, Indigenous Populations in Jesuit Land Compositions: Legal Arguments for Possession in Colonial Quito
Panel 2: Cultures, Practices, and Health
This second session examined archives, consumption, and the place of intermediaries in public health:
- Javiera Barrientos, Religious Archives in the Study of South American Waste Paper
- Ana Llurba, Bodies that Consume Bodies: Consumption Anxieties in the Latin American Anthropocene
- Joyce Lu, Community health workers or medicine vendors? Middle figures in Guatemala’s therapeutic landscape of antimicrobial resistance
Panel 3: Mobilities, Politics, and Development
The final panel focused on migration, international relations, security, and ongoing colonial dynamics in the region:
- Gloria D’Alessio, The Making and Unmaking of a Migration Corridor: Migration, Labor, and Reconfigurations of Border Life in the Darien Borderland
- Laura De Moya Guerra, Performing Diplomacy: Taiwan and China Dispute in Colombia During the Cold War 1960–1980
- Jeffrey Aizprua, Chaos at the End of the Funnel: How DTOs, poverty, and state capture have channeled drugs and violence to Esmeraldas, Ecuador
- Laurian Rosa Rosa, The Empire Remains: Colonial Continuities in Puerto Rico’s Post-Military Landscapes
- María Chacón Rendón, El éxito de La Calle y los orígenes del Nacionalismo Revolucionario en Bolivia
We extend our appreciation to all presenters, attendees, faculty participants, and the organizing team at the School of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations to the graduate students whose thoughtful and rigorous presentations made this symposium a success.
