Leaders of Latin American social movements to participate in UF's Center for Latin American Studies 55th Annual Conference

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida will hold its 55th annual conference Thursday through Saturday. The theme of the conference is “Alternative Visions of Development: Rural Social Movements in Latin America.”

The rural social movements in Latin America have emerged as among the best organized and strongest critics of the current neo-liberal model of development in the region. They have been playing a major role in the annual World Social Forum and in hemispheric and international protests and campaigns against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, World Trade Organization, etc. In some countries, they are wielding newfound political power, as seen in new, more inclusive national constitutions and agrarian and indigenous legislation. They are also electing and toppling governments. The rural social movements are engaged not only in critiques of existing models of development but are also trying to articulate new visions. The conference will focus on the alternative visions that are emerging from the peasant, landless, indigenous, women’s, environmental and fair trade movements.

The keynote sessions include:

• Thursday, 7:30 pm, Keene Faculty Center
  Daniel Correia, representative of the National Coordination of the Landless Movement of Brazil (MST).
  Topic: Agrarian Reform as a Path to Development
• Friday, 1 p.m., Reitz Student Union Auditorium
  Luis Macas, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and the first indigenous representative to Ecuador’s national congress.
  Topic: Processes of Organization of the Indigenous Movement of Ecuador
• Saturday, 11 a.m., Reitz Student Union Auditorium
  Leonida Zurita, executive secretary of the Peasant Women’s Coordination of the Tropics of Bolivia (COCAMTROP), alternate senator for the MAS (Movement toward Socialism) party, and former president of the Bolivian Federation of Peasant Women.
  Topic: Peasant Social Movements in Bolivia: Women at the Crossroads of 21st Century Nation-building

Other rural social movement leaders from Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru will be participating, as well as academics and researchers from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Mexico and the United States.

Panel sessions will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Reitz Student Union Auditorium on the rural social movements and alternative globalizations; the landless movement and the demand for agrarian reform; peasant and indigenous challenges to the state; the environmental movements; development projects as the site of contestation; the rural women’s movements; and on transnational perspectives on organizing for social justice.

The conference is free and open to the public. The complete conference program is available online at
www.latam.ufl.edu.

For more information, call (352) 392-0375, ext. 800.