Panel discussion: Violence Against Women in Mexico and Central America

Laura Carlsen (CIP Americas Program), Marilyn Thomson (CAWN - Central America Women’s Network) and Lorena Fuentes (Birkbeck College, University of London)

The Radical Americas Network organises and UCL Institute of the Americas hosts this thought-provoking panel discussion, with the participation of these three distinguished speakers. Introduced by Dr William Booth (Radical Americas Network). Attendance is free of charge but registration is required.

Laura Carlsen is Americas Program Director at the Center for International Policy. She holds a B.A. in Social Thought and Institutions from Stanford University and a Masters degree in Latin American Studies, also from Stanford. In 1986 she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the impact of the Mexican economic crisis on women and has lived in Mexico City since then. She has published numerous articles and chapters on social, economic and political aspects of Mexico and recently co-edited Confronting Globalization: Economic integration and popular resistance in Mexico, and co-authored El Café en Mexico, centroamerica y el caribe: Una salida sustentable a la crisis. Before joining the Americas Project, Carlsen was a correspondent for Latin Trade magazine, editor of Business Mexico, freelance writer and researcher.

Marilyn Thomson is co-director and a founding member of the Central America Women’s Network which in 2014 had its 23rd anniversary. She has lived, worked and travelled extensively in Latin America. She holds a PhD in Economics and Political Sciences from the Institute of Education, University of London which focussed on the politics of domestic workers and popular education in Mexico. She works as an independent consultant on gender and social development.

Lorena Fuentes is currently in her final year as a PhD candidate at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her research explores representational economies of femicide in Guatemala - drawing critical attention to the discursive and scopic regimes that circulate in relation to victims of violence, and which she argues work to reconstitute racial, class, and gender inequalities across war - ‘postwar’ contexts. Lorena has also contributed publications to Plan International UK .