Current projects

Annick Pellegrin | PhD

Project: "The Meaning of Modernity"
This project, entitled “The Meaning of Modernity”, is a comparative study of “Latin American” self-representation and the Franco-Belgian gaze on “Latin America” in a selection of “Latin American” and Franco-Belgian comics. While this project is partly an extension of my Honours project, it has a much wider scope and a multidisciplinary approach. It is a project which is being conducted under the joint supervision of Dr. Vek Lewis (Spanish) and Associate Professor Bronwyn Winter (French).

Biography
I graduated from The University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts (Languages) (Honours) in 2009, with majors in French, Spanish, Italian and Linguistics. My Honours thesis was completed under a joint supervision between the Department of French Studies (Associate Professor Bronwyn Winter) and the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies (Dr. Vek Lewis) and I was the first student to complete the honours program in the latter department. “Tintin and the Secret of Satire”, my thesis, was a study of the satire and the parody in Tintin et les Picaros, by the Belgian Hergé. I returned to The University of Sydney as a PhD candidate shortly after graduating from my Bachelor’s degree.

Book chapters

• “‘Ils sont fous ces Gaulois!’: Astérix, Lucky Luke, Freedom Fries and the Love-Hate Relationship Between France and the US”, in Comics as History, Comics as Literature: Roles of the Comic Book in Scholarship, Society, and Entertainment, Annessa A. Babic (Ed.) Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, (Forthcoming, 2012).

Journal articles

• “Inodoro Pereyra: The Gaucho as a National Icon”, Literature and Aesthetics, 20, 1 (2010): 9-25. Paper available online
• “Politics as a Carnival in Hergé’s Tintin et les Picaros”, European Comic Art, 3, 2 (2010): 168-188.

Interview

• 1er Congreso Internacional de Historietas: Viñetas Serias, Biblioteca Nacional, Buenos Aires, 24 September, 2010. (Interviewer: Federico Reggiani). Video available online

Conference activity

• ‘Going Westwards: The Geopolitical and Chronopolitical Place of Latin America in Hergé’s Diptychs Le secret de la Licorne/Le trésor de Rackham le Rouge and Les 7 boules de cristal/Le temple du soleil.’ Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Annual Conference 2011: Cultural ReOrientations and Comparative Colonialities, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 22–24 November, 2011.
• ‘“Ce n’est ni le lieu ni le moment! Eloignons-nous au plus vite!”: Time Travel, Ecology and the Place of Latin America in L’horloger de la comète.’ Joint SURCLA/French Studies Seminar, The University of Sydney, 14 September, 2011.
• ‘“Ce n’est ni le lieu ni le moment! Eloignons-nous au plus vite!”: Time Travel, Ecology and the Place of Latin America in L’horloger de la comète.’ Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Bandes Dessinées and Comics, Manchester Metropolitan University, 5-8 July, 2011.
• ‘“Do You Think US Comics are the Only Ones With Strong Men?”: Traitors and National Heroes in Rius’s Los Supermachos and the (de)Configuration of the Mexican Nation.’ SURCLA (The Sydney University Research Community for Latin America), The University of Sydney, 17 May, 2011.
• ‘“¿A poco sólo en las historietas gringas hay hombres juertes…?”: Malinchistas y cuauhtémiquistas en Los Supermachos de Rius y la (des)configuración de la mítica nación.’ International Society for Cultural History and Cultural Studies V Queer Studies Easter Symposium, Asamblea Legislativa del Distrito Federal, Mexico City, 11-16 April, 2011.
• ‘De los feos vicios, o las vergüenzas de los Pereyra’ 1er Congreso Internacional de Historietas: Viñetas Serias, Biblioteca Nacional, Buenos Aires, 23-25 September, 2010. Paper available online
• ‘Something is Rotten in the Pampas: Inodoro Pereyra’s Espadrilles and the ser nacional in Argentina’ IX Biennial Conference of the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia: Independence! Two Centuries of Struggle, Australian National University, Canberra, 7-9 July, 2010. Audio available online
• ‘Inodoro Pereyra: The Gaucho as a National Icon and Projections of the “Indian”’ Transcultural Mappings: Emerging Issues in Comparative, Transnational and Area Studies, The University of Sydney, 9-11 April, 2010.
• ‘Politics as a Carnival in Hergé’s Tintin et les Picaros’ SLC Research Day, The University of Sydney, 28 August, 2009.
• ‘Politics as a Carnival in Hergé’s Tintin et les Picaros’ International Bande Dessinée Society sixth bi-annual conference, Institut Français, London, 19-20 June, 2009.

Irene Strodthoff | PhD

Project: "Discursive Constructions of Bilateral Relations: Chile and Australia in the Context of the 2008 Free Trade Agreement”

This thesis comparatively examines from a socio-historical and geopolitical context the path that Chile and Australia as settler societies have followed in signing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 2008, the first that Australia signed with a Latin American country. Combining theoretical tools in the field of Critical Discourse Analysis, this research will firstly deconstruct the central features of Chilean and Australian dominant discourses between the return of democracy in Chile in 1990 and the year of the Chilean bicentenary in 2010. Secondly, this project will explore and compare the mutual visibility and invisibility between Australia and Chile in terms of imaginaries and the construction of notions of identity through a selection of articles in the written press. With these groups of elements, this thesis aims to interrogate the interrelation between official discourses, popular constructions of identity and power structures. This PhD project represents the first entirely conducted within the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies under the supervision of Dr. Fernanda Peñaloza and the co supervision of Dr. Vek Lewis.

Biography
I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a Diploma in Corporate Communication, both from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. I worked on public relations, press releases, web page update, media relations and full-time reporter for over 15 years in Chile before coming to Australia to study a Master of Arts in International Communication at Macquarie University in 2005. I started my PhD project in 2009, financed by a scholarship from the Bicentennial Fund, a program launched by the Chilean government in the context of the Free Trade Agreement signing by Australia and Chile in 2008.

Books

• The trace of a leap: A year in Australia. Santiago: Forja Publisher (2007).

Journal articles

• “Reimagining far-flung yet connected places: Australia and Chile in the Pacific Region (1990-2010)”, Valahian Journal of Historical Studies, 16, Winter Issue (2011): 9-26. Paper available online (1.1Mb)
• “Rethinking the nation in the Chilean and Australian bicentenaries”, Humanities Research Journal, XVII, 1 (2011). Paper available online
• “Political Economy of Communication, Human Security and Development: The first 100 days of Evo Morales’s Government in Bolivia”, Global Media Journal, (American Edition), 5, 9 (2006). Paper available online

Interview

• Conference Transcultural Mappings: Emerging issues in comparative, transnational and area studies, SBS Radio, Sydney, 10 April, 2010.

Conference activity

• ‘Discursive Operations between Chile and Australia: Social Power and Visibility in the Press (2000-2010).’ Third International Conference on Language and Communication: Interdisciplinary Discourses in Language and Communication, National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), Bangkok, 15-16 December, 2011.
• ‘Images of Colonial Australia and Chile: Reshaping the Meanings of the Kangaroo and the Huaso.’ Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Annual Conference 2011: Cultural ReOrientations and Comparative Colonialities, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 22-24 November, 2011.
• ‘Australia and Chile: Mutual Visibility and the Interplay of Knowledge, Culture and Hegemony.’ Knowledge/Culture/Social Change International Conference, University of Western Sydney, 7-9 November, 2011.
• ‘National Identities, Relations and Roles between Chile and Australia – A Discourse Analysis of Press and Political Texts 1990-2010.’ School of Languages and Cultures Postgraduate Research Day, The University of Sydney, 1 November, 2011.
• ‘Rethinking the nation in the Chilean and Australian bicentenaries’, IX Biennial Conference of the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia: Independence! Two Centuries of Struggle, Australian National University, Canberra, 7-9 July, 2010.
• ‘Notions of identity construction in a globalised environment: The case of Chile and Australia 1990-2010’, Transcultural Mappings: Emerging Issues in Comparative, Transnational and Area Studies, The University of Sydney, 9-11 April, 2010. Abstract available online
• ‘Discursive construction of bilateral relations: The case of Chile and Australia 1990-2010’, 5th Symposium on Discourse Analysis, The University of Melbourne, 20 November, 2009. Abstract available online
• ‘Discursive construction of bilateral relations: The case of Chile and Australia 1990-2010’, Postgraduate Research Student Panel, The University of Sydney, 13 October 2009.
• ‘Political economy of communication, human security and development: The first 100 days of Evo Morales’ government in Bolivia’, II International Workshop Manuel Bulnes, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, 6-7 September, 2006.

Steven Bunce | PhD

Project: Invisible in the City? The Urban Resettlement Experience for Internally Displaced Persons

My project is an urban ethnographic study of the resettlement experience of internally displaced persons in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. It investigates why displaced persons fluctuate between formal state, NGO and humanitarian assistance and other informal avenues of support necessary to surviving and becoming self-sufficient in the city. Along with ethnographic mapping of displaced populations, this project explores the interactions of a range of actors (NGOs, state service providers, church groups, the police), comparing and contrasting major humanitarian and urban development initiatives with the individual points of view of internally displaced persons.

My supervisors for this project are Dr. Vek Lewis (Spanish and Latin American Studies) and Dr. Erin Taylor (Anthropology).

Biography

I completed my combined Communications and International Studies degree at UTS, Sydney, majoring in Screenwriting and Spanish, before enrolling in an Honours year with the Spanish and Latin American Studies Department, There I wrote my thesis on how the media’s long-term fixation on violent death, insecurity and corruption has been instrumental in situating Mexico as the world’s kidnapping capital and generating a collective psychosis around the crime of kidnapping.

My doctoral project follows an internship with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva. There, many state representatives and humanitarian actors emphasized the need to rethink outreach measures for refugees and internally displaced persons in the context of accelerated urbanization and mixed migration (forced and voluntary) to cities.

Main research interests

• Urban anthropology/ethnography
• Anthropology of class systems
• The city as site of transformation and/or transgression in the context of forced and voluntary migration
• Media imaginaries of violent crime, corruption and insecurity
• Economic crime and the depoliticization of violence in class-disparate societies
• Community-police relations and citizen faith in authorities

Inés Durán Matute | M Phil.

Project: "Mobilization as a means of constructing autonomy”

This study will examine the new norms of behaviour in the relationship that indigenous communities have with the State by providing a critical account of the fight that the Cocas, inhabitants of Mezcala (a community on the shores of Lake Chapala, Mexico), are undertaking in their confrontation with the Mexican State and urban-industrial society. It will tackle questions of crucial importance to the indigenous communities, in order to facilitate a better understanding of the dynamics in which they are immersed, and to identify and plan appropriate actions in response. Specifically the project will aim to investigate the mechanisms and adaptations that the mobilized indigenous use to reproduce their identity and to construct their autonomy with respect to their relations with the State while implementing neoliberal policies in the context of globalization. This thesis is being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Vek Lewis and Dr. Fernanda Peñaloza within the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies.

Biography
I studied at the University of Guadalajara (México) where I obtained with outstanding academic performance a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology with a Major in Spanish and Latin American Studies. I attended two academic exchange programs at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and at the University of Alcalá de Henares (Spain). I participated in a research project about Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta sponsored by the International Labor Organization (ILO). I worked as a research assistant in the Department of Iberian and Latin American Studies (University of Guadalajara) and in the Research and Superior Studies Center of Social Anthropology (CIESAS-Occidente/ Guadalajara). I have been granted a scholarship from the University of Sydney to continue my studies as a postgraduate research student.

Oral Presentations:

• Durán Matute, I., Proyectos tur'sticos, una amenaza para los ecosistemas mexicanos (Touristic projects, a threat for the Mexican ecosystems), XV Encuentro Nacional de Estudiantes de Sociolog'a, UNAM FES Aragón, México, May 2008.
• Durán Matute, I., Sendero Luminoso: Ideolog'a y Violencia (Sendero Luminoso: violence and ideology) Semana Cultural de Sociolog'a “Dilemas sociológicos: espacios alternos de análisis para la realidad social” (Sociological Dilemmas: alternative spaces for social reality analysis), University of Guadalajara, May 2008.

Booklets:

• Coronado, D., González, A., Córtez, J., Mar'n, M. J., Álvarez, R. I., Muñoz, M. A., Razón, A. C., Sánchez, I. E., Flores, O., Durán, I. (2007). La Explotación Sexual Comercial Infantil desde la visión de niños, niñas y adolescentes, Estudios de casos en Guadalajara y Puerto Vallarta, 2006 (Commercial sexual exploitation of children a vision from boys, girls and adolescents. Cases Study in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. 2006). México D.F: OIT. ISBN 978-92-2-319969-2. 59 pp.
• Coronado, D., González, A., Córtez, J., Mar'n, M. J., Flores, O., Durán, I. (2007) Una aproximación a la ESCI desde la percepción adulta. Estudio exploratorio en Guadalajara y Puerto Vallarta, 2006. (An approximation to the CSEC from adult perspective. Exploratory study in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta). México D.F: OIT. ISBN 978-92-2-319967-8. 53 pp.

Book Chapters:

• Durán, I. Genocidio imparable, situación de los pueblos ind'genas mexicanos. (Unstoppable genocide: a situation of the Mexican indigenous groups) In: D. Coronado & A. Emaides (Eds.) (2009), Los prismas rotos. La violencia desde una óptica multidisciplinar (Broken prisms. The violence from a multidisciplinary perspective). Córdoba, Argentina: Universidad de Guadalajara/Universidad Nacional de Villa Mar'a, Argentina/Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. Pp. 243 – 286. ISBN 978-987-9357-84-2.
• Durán, I. Sentando las bases para un modelo de análisis de ESCI (Setting up the bases for an analysis model of the commercial sexual exploitation of children) In: D. Coronado & A. Emaides (Eds.) (2010), El asalto a la intimidad infantil (The assault to the child intimacy). Cordoba, Argentina: Universidad de Guadalajara/Universidad Nacional de Villa Mar'a, Argentina/Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina.