The Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship Lecture: América and the Elites without History

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By drawing on the Colombian case, in this lecture, Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros invites us to think of the social formation of elites as a way to see how neoliberal rationalities have become the dominant way to organize societies across the Americas in the last half century. Although scholars have recently privileged the study of neoliberalism from below, he proposes it is crucial to see how elites legitimise—acquire, preserve, shelter—their power and privilege in neoliberal societies. This presentation, América and the Elites without History: Some Thoughts on Democracy as Domination, is an effort to stimulate a broader discussion on how we materialize interdisciplinary approaches to critically understand how a system of domination, rooted in a diversity of hierarchies and vast disparities in wealth, have become sanctioned as a reality.

UCL Institute of the Americas is delighted to announce The Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship Lecture, by Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros, recipient of this prestigious award and currently collaborating with the Institute under the auspices of the scheme

Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros is Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of the Americas (2021-2022). He is a historian of post-colonial and transnational histories of Latin America. His area of specialization focuses on the intersections of labor, class, gender, race, political economy, and political rationality of rule. While at UCL Institute of the Americas, he will explore the contested histories of democracies in the Americas. He will present his recent research on the historical formation of the middle classes in Latin America. He will also work on his current research on the social foundations of neoliberalism in the Americas during the second half of the twentieth century

Links:

Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros | academic profile

Images:

[top] Allegorical image depicting the slaughter of a pig with various characters (representing the Colombian elites) participating in the slaughter and picking the best pieces, with the caption in Spanish 'la reparticion de la marrana 1974-78' © Revista Alternativa, May 3-10, 1974

[centre] Logo of The Leverhulme Trust

[bottom] Professor Ricardo López-Pedreros