Conceived as a space for students of postgraduate programs, mainly doctoral programs, to share with prominent academics, the second version of LASI revolved around reflection on the forms of expression of discrimination and, in addition, delved into the history of the Mapuche people and its current crossroads.
Between January 4 and 9, 2018, the second version of the Latin American Summer School on Social Issues, LASI, was held at the Villarrica UC Campus. This version was organized by the Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies (CIIR), the Institute of Archeology and Anthropology of the Universidad Católica del Norte and the UC School of Anthropology, with the support of the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University.
LASI is a summer school aimed at highly qualified doctoral students and young researchers who have at least a Master’s degree, whose objective is to give students the opportunity to meet for a week in faculty mode, receiving training and supervision from prominent social scientists.
As in its first edition, held in San Pedro de Atacama in January 2017, LASI was organized around plenary classes, debates, and intensive workshops that focused on specific themes and theories. Each workshop was supervised by two tutors, one local academic and one international.
In this second version, 36 students from various national and international graduate programs participated in the summer school. Students from programs at Stanford, Cambridge, California Davis, Arizona, Manchester and the London School of Economics participated in the school. LASI also contemplated the entry of students with scholarships for doctoral programs from the Pontifical Catholic University, University of Chile, Universidad Católica del Norte, Universidad de Concepción and Universidad de la Frontera.
The 2018 summer school focused on the notion of difference as a sociopolitical phenomenon and a concept of theoretical analysis. Difference marks the limit of belonging to all types of communities and is therefore a key element for understanding social life. The social production of difference is a practice of constructing borders and limits that operates both as a way of defining external borders, for example between nation-states, or to mark internal boundaries based on, for example, race, political ideology, class and gender, sexualities or disabilities. Although difference frequently operates to define hierarchies, inequalities, and power asymmetries, it is also articulated as part of identity politics. In this way, each difference is also always a political, social, cultural and moral category, which can be scrutinized and turned into an object of debate.
Villarrica and the link with the territory
Throughout its history, the Villarrica UC Campus has developed an educational proposal in accordance with the needs detected in the Araucanía region. This link with the community has included, by the way, work with Indigenous Peoples, specifically the Mapuche. The beginning of the CIIR’s management in the area, around 2013, intensified this relationship, leading different investigations that valued heritage aspects of the Mapuche culture, as well as projects that addressed public policies with an indigenous focus and aspects of discrimination and racism. observable in the area. Based on the knowledge obtained, LASI stipulated a series of extracurricular activities that would allow students to delve into the current problems of the Mapuche people, taking advantage of the unbeatable conditions of Villarrica as a space for observation and entry into the Mapuche territory.
As a first activity, a workshop on linguistics and Mapuche worldview was developed. Next, a plenary session addressed the ethnopolitical processes in Araucanía and how politics is developed at the local level in those communes where the authorities belong to the Mapuche ethnic group. Councilors from the communes of Galvarino and Curarrehue, as well as the mayor of Lumaco, participated in this panel.
A third activity was the exhibition of the play “Ñuke”, put on by the Trawün company and directed by the playwright Paula González. Ñuke is a praised piece that addresses in a vivid and stark way the harshest aspects of the Mapuche conflict and the confrontation between community members and the police forces.
Finally, LASI was the space for the beginning of a cycle of interviews with historical leaders of the Mapuche movement, from the late seventies to the present. Titled “Nütram”, we are talking about a series of interviews by historian and CIIR researcher Fernando Pairican. The first guest was the leader of Ad Mapu José Santo s Millao. All of these activities allowed LASI students to expand their margins of reflection regarding the process of intercultural recognition in the case of the Mapuche people, attending to various voices that coexist within the demands made by these indigenous communities.
Next edition
In 2019, LASI will return to northern Chile, specifically to Antofagasta. In its next version, the summer school will address the migration process within the phenomenon of globalization.
