Latin America and Europe – Unequal Entanglements

This paper presents the transformations of Latin American-European relations over time as an interdependent unequal relationship. These relations have been shaped by exports of commodities, including the enrichment of European foodways with indigenous Latin American crops and the environmentally destructive extraction of natural resources and commercial export agriculture. The transformation under colonialism led not only to the settlement of Europeans in Latin America but also to the Atlantic slave trade. The consequence of these relations of domination even today is a limited acknowledgement of Latin America as being more than an extension of Europe. With the end of European immigration to and from Latin America, the role of the United States has grown instead, and increasingly developments in Latin America have also taken on their own dynamics, decoupled from Europe. In the coming decades, relations with China which have grown rapidly in commerce and commodity exports are likely to transform the role of Europe in the region yet again

A Provisional Appraisal

The following working paper (the English translation of “Soziale Ungleichheiten und globale Interdependenzen in Lateinamerika: eine Zwischenbilanz” desiguALdades.net Working Paper Series 4, 2013) lays out the baseline from which the research approach of the research network desiguALdades.net was developed. Starting from diverse social inequality phenomena in Latin America, the network seeks to underline the multidimensionality of inequalities and their transregional interdependencies, taking a synchronic as well as a diachronic perspective into account. It thereby draws, first, on the discourse on global approaches to the study of inequalities, particularly world system approaches and transnationalism. Secondly, it is based on a critical examination of key concepts (like figuration and regime). Lastly, it seeks to link these to subjects and areas, especially the environmental dimension, that until now have received little consideration in research on inequalities

eine Zwischenbilanz

Im Folgenden werden die grundlegenden Überlegungen dargelegt, von denen aus der Forschungsansatz von desiguALdades.net entwickelt wurde. In diesem Kompetenznetz geht es darum, ausgehend von in Lateinamerika beobachteten Phänomenen sozialer Ungleichheiten die Mehrdimensionalität von Ungleichheiten und ihre transregionalen Interdependenzen in synchroner und diachroner Perspektive zu berücksichtigen. Diese Überlegungen speisen sich erstens aus der Auseinandersetzung mit Ansätzen, die Ungleichheiten global erforschen – insbesondere im Feld des Weltsystemansatzes und der Transnationalismusforschung. Zweitens basieren sie auf einer kritischen Reflexion von Schlüsselbegriffen (wie Figuration und Regime). Sie versuchen drittens, bislang von der Ungleichheitsforschung nicht berücksichtigte Themen, insbesondere Umweltfragen, mit dieser zu verbinden

Die Zukunft der Area Studies in Deutschland

Tagung im Rahmen des Forschungsverbundes "Wege des Wissens. Transregionale Studien" am Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, in Kooperation mit der VolkswagenStiftung, 14.07.-16.07.2005, Max-Liebermann-Haus, Berlin