The Sydney University Research Community for Latin America
About SURCLA
SURCLA (Sydney University Research Community for Latin America) is an academic research network that was originally conceived by the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies (School of Languages and Cultures), but which rapidly gained the support of members of different departments and schools across the Faculty of Arts. SURCLA provides a dynamic forum for scholarly communication and interaction, a site of debate where members share their ideas, strategies and research experiences with the common goal of advancing knowledge of Latin America. Members of SURCLA come from the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, political sciences, gender, media, cultural and literary studies.
Aims and rationale
The main aim of SURCLA is to promote interdisciplinary research and teaching on Latin America as well as establishing the University of Sydney as the leading institution in Australia for the study of Latin America. Although SURCLA will be based in the University of Sydney, we would like to foster academic and cultural links with other Australian institutions as well as bringing students and scholars from different Latin American countries to the University. SURCLA aims to establish links with professional and community based organisations and institutions as a means to increase the visibility of the significant expertise on Latin American Studies in Australia.
Latin American Migrants Research Project
SURCLA members Dr Vek Lewis, Fernanda Peñaloza and Dr Verónica Quinteros are currently working on a project entitled 'Latin American Migration in Sydney: The Chilean Case'. By combining ethnographic interviewing, document collection, and discourse analysis, this FARSS (Faculty of Arts Research Support Scheme) funded research project project seeks to uncover the wide range of meanings and uses that processes of identity formation, differentiation, recognition and negotiation play among members of Sydney’s Chilean community.
For more information on the project please email
or
Download a pdf notice with this information.
Current activities open to the academic and non-academic public
SURCLA hosts fortnightly seminars and documentary screenings. Follow this link for details.
Immediate plans
We are working on “Al Sur / Ao Sul / To the South”, an exhibition on the Latin American experience of migration to Australia. The exhibition will consist of a display of personal narratives and family photographs of migrants who established themselves in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s from different geographical locations of Latin America. These intimate accounts of the experience of migration will be displayed alongside historical details that contextualise it within the political and cultural climate of the period. This material will constitute the basis for a research project on Latin American migration to Australia due to commence in 2011.
Future plans
We are working on developing a cultural agenda with a wide range of events and one main biennial international conference. In the long term we would like to offer a taught MA course in Latin American Studies. Meanwhile, we aim to become the point of reference for research students seeking PhD/MPhil/MA supervision in the field of Latin American Studies.