ÉRIGAL has just held its first International Conference : Resisting Chronic Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean - October 23rd to 25th - Concordia
The first international conference hosted by ÉRIGAL “Resisting Chronic Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean” took place over three days, from 23 – 25 October, and hosted a diverse range of activities.
On Wednesday 23rd October, practitioners from Jamaica, Colombia and Brazil shared their experiences as community workers in the context of violence. They described their daily activities in their organisations, their experiences and strategies of resistance developed to fight against and in the face of violence. At the end of the session, Prof. Jenny Pearce (London School of Economics), the keynote speaker, gave a talk on ‘Participatory Action Research in a Violent Context’ which attracted nearly 90 attendees to the public event.
The next morning, two other practitioners continued on the same theme from the previous day and shared their experiences. After which the academic panels began. The first panel was entitled ‘Structural Urban Violence and Non-State Armed Actors’ which featured presentations by renowned specialists in the field: Enrique Desmond Arias (Baruch College), Mo Hume (University of Glasgow), Kees Koonings (University of Utrecht) and Dennis Rodgers (Graduate Institute, Geneva). The day ended with a panel called ‘Building Resistance in Informal Communities’ with presentations from Romain Busnel (UdeM - Lille 2), Rivke Jaffe (University of Amsterdam), Dennis de Oliveira (Universidade de São Paulo) and Rodrigo Pena Gonzalez (Leiden University).
Finally, the last day was organised in two stages. In the morning, the panel ‘Resistance in Violent Workplaces’ was made up of presentations by Jurema Brites (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria), Erynn Casanova (University of Cincinnati), Verónica Crossa (Colegio de México) and Manuel Rosaldo (Penn State University) and in the panel ‘Structural Urban violence Targeted: Government Policies and Programmes’ Ignacio Cano (Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro), Annabelle Dias Felix (UdeM) et Hugo Frühling (Universidade de Chile) presented their work and closed presentations for the day. In the afternoon, ÉRIGAL students attended a masterclass with Erynn Casanova, Kees Koonings, Jenny Pearce, Dennis Rodgers and Verónica Crossa.
ÉRIGAL’s first international conference hosted exchanges between practitioners and academics, between experiences of South America and those of the Caribbean and also was an opportunity to promote the co-production of knowledge both through formal and informal discussions at the event.
