UCL Institute of the Americas

The UCL Americas Research Network is pleased to invite all interested parties to this networking event. The purpose is to welcome new postgraduate students from and beyond UCL - Institute of the Americas as well as to provide all UCL Americas-oriented societies and networks with the opportunity to briefly introduce their aims and objectives. It will be a great opportunity to get to know each other, share our ideas and work in a friendly and informal environment.

Between 1968 and 1975 Stefano Varese (University of California, Davis) had the privilege of participating as an anthropologist in Peru’s Armed Forces Revolution lead by Juan Velasco Alvarado. At the end of 1975 he ended up in Mexico working as a researcher in the National Institute of Anthropology and History and later in the Vice-Ministry of Culture.

With the election of former military officer Ollanta Humala to the Presidency of Peru in 2011, the spectre of the military regime of Juan Velasco Alvarado was invoked by both those who feared, and by those who hoped, that Humala would turn out to be a Peruvian version of Hugo Chávez. Yet both camps mobilized a superficial narrative of the Velasco regime and period. Although the regime attracted significant attention from scholars in the 1970s, there has until recently been limited scholarly output on the Velasco years. However, recent published studies (Mayer, Walter, Cant) point to a growing interest, particularly among historians, in rethinking the history of the Velasco period and in formulating a more sophisticated interpretation of one of the most idiosyncratic military regimes in the history of Latin America. This conference brings together much of this new scholarship for the first time. Please consult the full program here.

In this panel, three leading experts on Ecuador will consider recent developments and future prospects in Ecuadorian politics as well as developments in the country's political economy and trade.

John A. Macdonald: Canada’s first Prime Minister – in 49,000 words

The Institute of Historical Research (IHR - University of London), with the support of UCL-Institute of the Americas, hosts Juan Pablo Artinian (Stony Brook University), to deliver this seminar, part of its series on Latin American History. For further details, please contact the IHR directly.

Filmed in Jamaica, Ghana, Canada and the United States, Akwantu: The Journey is an award-winning documentary on the Jamaican Maroons, rebel slaves of West African origin who defeated the mighty British military and formed autonomous communities in the rugged and remote interiors of Jamaica in the early to mid-18th century. The descendants of these communities still maintain their proud heritage today.