International and interdisciplinary exchange on informalities, conviviality and inequalities in Latin America
As part of the international Mecila community, the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) was once again the main organizer of this year's Mecila Annual Meeting and Young Researchers Forum, which took place in São Paulo, Brazil, from 7 to 10 October 2024. Interdisciplinary panels, roundtables and break-out groups dealt with relationships and practices of actors or groups in different tensions with legal frameworks, public institutions or formal working relationships. The discussions focused on topics such as informal working conditions for women in the textile industry from an ethnographic perspective, the challenges of care work, particularly in informal social contexts, and the transformation of cultural practices and strategies between informality and formality.
During the visit to the Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB / Universidade de São Paulo), the participants experienced directly how informalities, coloniality and inequalities shape and transform archives and collections. During the event, the latest publications of the open access Mecila book series "Biblioteca Mecila-CLACSO" were presented, which shows the interdisciplinary and networked work of all Mecila Research Areas.
What is Mecila?
The collaborative project Mecila – Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America has been in existence since 2017. The center examines past and present forms of social, political and cultural conviviality in Latin America and the Caribbean and aims to contribute to a better understanding of conviviality in diverse and unequal societies. In a consortium of German and Latin American institutions, the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (IAI) works together with the Freie Universität Berlin, the Universität zu Köln, the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), the Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (Cebrap), the Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IdIHCS/Conicet) of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, and El Colegio de México. Mecila is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As a member of the Mecila collaborative project, the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut coordinates the research area “Medialities of Conviviality” and is responsible for the information infrastructure of the collaborative project, which also includes networking the libraries of the Mecila consortium.
Further links
- Mecila – Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America
- Program and detailed report on the Mecila Annual Meeting and Young Researchers Forum “Informalities, Conviviality and Inequality in Latin America”
- Mecila book series “Biblioteca Mecila-CLACSO”
Institutions of the consortium
- Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Germany)
- Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) (overall coordination)
- Universität zu Köln (Germany)
- Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)
- Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (Brazil)
- Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (Argentina)
- El Colegio de México (Mexico)
