• About JISLAC
• Call for applications: Research and Seminar Grants
• Web Resources
• Research Projects
• Regional Seminars and Conferences
• Contact JISLAC

JISLAC is a body made up of the membership of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS), theSociety for Caribbean Studies (SCS) and the Standing Conference of Centres of Latin American Studies (SC) (hosted by the Institute for the Study of the Americas). The purpose of JISLAC is to manage the activities of a jointly-held British Academy Learned Societies grant, which runs for five years, to support Latin American and Caribbean studies in the UK and Europe.

JISLAC supports postdoctoral research, regional seminars, two conferences, a web portal to aid communication, and travel bursaries and prizes, details of which are outlined below. The work of the grant began in April 2007 and is expected to finish in March 2012.

Research Grants

Four grants of up to £4,000 each are available to British-based postdoctoral scholars for projects that demonstrate a clear and direct link with Latin American or Caribbean studies.

Research must take place as soon as possible and be complete by 31 March 2012. Deadline for application is midday on 12 September 2011.

Further details, including the application form, are available here.

Conference grants

Eight grants of £2,000 are available to fund seminars on Latin America and/or the Caribbean with the aim of fortifying Area Studies in our fields, especially when there exists limited or no strong institutional support structure and where researchers are often spread across discipline-based departments.

Seminars must take place by 31 March 2012. Deadline for application is midday on 12 September 2011.

Further details, including the application form, are available here.

Enhancement or development of a range of web resources including:

• Latin American and Caribbean Studies Research Portal (the Handbook)
• SLAS website
• Society for Caribbean Studies website
• Directory of Latin American and Caribbean Library Resources in the UK

JISLAC has made the following research grant awards:

Theme one (Histories of migration from the Western hemisphere and patterns of settlement):

•Simon Smith and Jonathan Finch, Tracing the Contours of Settlement: Slavery and the Landscape of St Vincent, 1775-1833
•Michael Goebel, Immigration and marriage patterns in urban and rural Uruguay, 1880-1930
•Matthew Brown, European Migrants in Colombia and Venezuela, 1829-1860
•Kenneth Morgan, British Transatlantic Slaving across National Boundaries: Volume and Distribution in the Americas, 1660-1807

Theme two (The New Europe: legal and political conditions of contemporary Caribbean and Latin American diasporas in Europe):

•Anastasia Bermudez Torres, Political Mobilisation of Latin American Migrants in Spain
•Laurence Brown and Paulo Drinot, Racialisation and insurgent citizenship in the New Europe: A comparative study of Latin American and Caribbean migrants
•Mette Berg, Diasporic Cultural Politics after Castro
•Silvia Posocco, Fissured Legality and Affective States: Ethnographic Reflections on the ‘International Adoption’ Circuits between Guatemala and the United Kingdom

Theme three (The political economy of the contemporary relations between Europe and the Caribbean and Latin America):

•Paul Sutton, The Caribbean Overseas Territories and the European Union: Toward a New Policy?
•Diego Sanchez-Ancochea, Is the EU promoting development in Latin America? Central America and the negotiation of the Association Agreement
•Mahrukh Doctor, Business Impact on European Union-Mercosur Trade Policy: Past Failures and Future Mechanisms for Success

Due to cuts in the grant provided to JISLAC by the British Academy, no further research grants will be awarded.

Up to EIGHT SEMINARS on Latin America and/or the Caribbean are held each year in various parts of the UK. The seminars are planned with the aim of fortifying Area Studies in our fields, especially when there exists limited or no strong institutional support structure and where colleagues are often scattered across discipline-based departments. The aim is to achieve broad regional coverage, and applications to host a seminar are welcome. The general format for each seminar is three speakers and a dinner, and an allocation of £1500 is made to each event.

Forthcoming Seminars

• 5 May 2011: La Doble Moral: Constructing Sex work in Neo-liberal Latin America
  Organisers: Megan Rivers-Moore and Kate Hardy
• 20 May 2011: Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
  University of York, Berrick Saul Building on 20 May from 1:30 till 5:30
• September 2011: Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
• Oct/Nov 2011: Citizenship: changing state and changing status
  University of Nottingham (Organiser: Tony Kapcia)
• Jan 2012: Caribbean Research Seminar Series in the North
• Feb 2012: JISLAC Closing Conference at the Institute for the Study of the Americas