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About the Scholarship Each year funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation allows the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, to offer a small number of advanced graduate students the opportunity to become "Mellon Fellows in Latin American Sociology." The program is expected to continue at least through the 2004-2005 academic year. Those selected as Mellon Fellows receive support for up to three years to allow them to do pre-dissertation fieldwork, to develop a dissertation proposal, to conduct dissertation fieldwork in Latin America, and to write-up their dissertations. The fellowships provide a stipend of $14,000 during the academic year. Fellowships may be renewed yearly for up to a total of three years, contingent on satisfactory progress in the program. Fellows may also receive a summer stipend of $3,000 for up to two summers in addition to their academic year stipend, provided they submit a plan of summer study or research. In addition to stipend support, the program will also defray the expenses of traveling to Latin America to do research (up to $3,000 per fellow) and/or for travel to professional meetings (up to $450 per fellow). Support does not include payment of tuition or fees. Fellows must be students enrolled in the Berkeley Ph.D. program in Sociology and have outstanding overall records in the program. They must have passed their Ph.D. qualifying examinations by the end of the semester prior to taking up the fellowship. Fellows are expected to have reasonable fluency in either Spanish or Portuguese and to have prepared a field for their qualifying examinations that has substantial Latin American content. If they have not already done so, they will also be expected to take at least two advanced seminars in the department that include substantial content addressing Latin American issues and at least one advanced research seminar outside of the sociology department which focuses on Latin American issues. Applications are normally due at the end of April. Once a specific deadline is announced, candidates for Berkeley Mellon Latin American Fellowships will be asked to submit: 1) a copy of their graduate transcripts; 2) a brief (3-5 pp.) summary of their previous course work and research experience, emphasizing work relevant to the study of Latin America and demonstrating eligibility (either in terms of courses already taken or in terms of planned coursework); and 3) a 10-page (approx. 3,000 words) summary of their proposed dissertation research. The Sociology Department Graduate Assistant (Elsa Tranter) [Room 422, Barrows Hall] collects the applications, which are then review by the Director, the Associate Director and a committee of faculty. August 24, 2001
Berkeley Mellon Fellows at LASA2001
This year Berkeley Mellon Fellows formed a significant presence at
LASA2001. Two Fellows and two former Fellows delivered papers on
topics as diverse as human rights in Argentina and political change in
Central America. Avri Beard presented a paper for a session titled "Actores
en la democratizaci? de Am?ica Latina y el Caribe: Alcance y
limitaciones de la acci? social y pol?ica," that offered a preliminary
analysis of data collected during her twelve months of research in El
Salvador and Guatemala during 1999-2001. In "Democratic Oligarchs:
Elites and Political Change in Guatemala and El Salvador," Avri
examines the effects of changing political regimes and economic
development strategies in these two Central American countries. She
argues that state-led developmentalism adopted by military governments
in both nations in the 1960s and 70s helped break their power-sharing
pact with local elites, eventually leading to a military withdrawal
from politics.?The spread of neoliberal, market-oriented policy
orthodoxy in the 1980s and 90s facilitated elite acceptance of
democratic elections and a re-envisioning of their role in
society.?She also contends that both analyses of the so-called Third
Wave of democratization and the older political-economy analyses
inspired by Barrington Moore fail to question the meaning of democracy
and whether this could change over time.?The range and depth of the
issues at stake and/or the nature of popular participation is changed
in neoliberal regimes. Thus Salvadoran and Guatemalan elites are
willing to embrace procedural democracy because they do not believe it
will become a vehicle for mass participation, that is, for a more
substantive democracy.
While Avri examined processes of democratization in Central America,
Susana Wappenstein illuminated the link between nation-building and
social movement struggle.?Susana chaired a session titled "Rethinking
Violence: Issues of Justice and Memory in Contemporary Local
Practices."?Susana also presented her paper, "Mnemonic
Struggles:?Nation, Human Rights and Remembrance in Argentina," in
which she discussed issues of violence and remembrance as they pertain
to the re-foundation of the Argentine nation after the military
period.?She examined these themes with specific reference to the
questions that have been brought into public debate through the
struggles around human rights, focusing on a more recent case of
violence and resistance: the 1994 bombing of the building of the
Israelite-Argentine Mutual Association or AMIA?and the subsequent
formation of the citizens group Memoria Activa.?Susana discussed the
practices of Memoria Activa as they engage with strategies that are
directed at recognizing the bombing and its victims as Argentine
subjects and at challenging the actions taken (or not) by the state in
resolving the case.?She argued that the case of the AMIA and the
subsequent struggles surrounding it cannot be understood as
disconnected from the country's history of violence and
resistance.?Rather, she posits, this case must be explained in the
context of the nation's struggles to deal with the legacy of past
human rights violations and the challenges that these represent in the
construction of a national project.
硼硼硼?Avri and Susana뭩 papers centered on social change at the level of
the state and national social movements. Millie Thayer and Tamara Kay,
however, focused their analyses on transnational social movements.
Millie examined the transnational feminist movement.?She presented 밫ransnational
Feminism as Field: Power, Solidarity and the Researcher,?for the 밎lobalization,
Social Justice, and Research Activism?section .?In her paper, Millie
argues that what was once 뱓he feminist movement?now constitutes a
transnational social space, made up of diverse local sites. As
globalization draws activists and funders in the global North, and
grassroots organizations and NGOs in Latin America into closer
connection, the power relations between them have come into sharper
relief. Millie examines the place of the U.S.-based researcher in this
global web, using as a case study her fieldwork with two women뭩
movements in Northeast Brazil.
Tamara Kay focused her transnational analysis on the labor movement
in North America for her session on "The Impact of Economic Policies
on the Latin American Working Classes." In her paper titled
Toothless Trade Agreement with a Mean Bite: How NAFTA Changed the
Paradigm of International Labor Solidarity in North America,Tamara
examines how NAFTA and processes of globalization affected labor
organizing across national borders.She argues that NAFTA ultimately
catalyzed labor solidarity in North America.The trade agreement also
shifted the paradigm of international labor solidarity from the
creation of ephemeral cross-border contacts to the stimulation of?뱓rue?transnational
relationships, and provided a political opportunity for a true
transnational labor movement as opposed to ontingent political
alliances?to emerge in North America.
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