33145

Laboratory of hope: Necrocapitalism and militarization in turbulent times.

María Belén Díaz Armas

Information for students

Modulprüfung im MA Lateinamerikastudien (SPO 2023) (Profil B): Hausarbeit (ca. 15 Seiten) oder mündliche Prüfung (ca. 20 Minuten)

Additional information / Pre-requisites

Seminarsprachen: Deutsch/Englisch/Spanisch/Portugiesisch

Comments

The world is experiencing an escalation of armed conflicts, an increase in the production and sale of weapons, as well as the precariousness of the living conditions of the social majorities. In order to understand the complex articulations between militarization and the political economy of death, it is necessary to develop a global analytical perspective that takes into account how advanced capitalism is configured through contradictory and inter-scalar processes of “creative destruction” (Harvey, 2007). Latin America has been a scenario of violence and “necropolitics” (Mbembe, 2019) from imperial colonization to the right-wing dictatorships and counterinsurgency policies, promoted by the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, the constant onslaught of national and transnational neoliberal actors has laid the foundations for projects that contribute to the impoverishment of the population and the increase of social inequalities. This course is conceived as a two-sided coin, as it contemplates violence and hope. On the one hand, we will discuss conceptual frameworks that help us explain the interconnections between local oligarchies, criminal groups linked to drug trafficking and globally dominant political and economic sectors. The cases of Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador will serve us as empirical pivots to focus on the consequences of the alleged “war on drugs” and the relationship between structural racism and police/military violence. At the same time, we will use the local German case to illuminate not only the transregional and colonial bridges of militarization but also the function of the criminalization of social protest in a context of fascistization. The counterpart to the study of violence will be our “laboratory of hope”. In an interactive way and with dynamic formats, we will explore the projects of resistance set in motion by communities and popular movements. From there, we will analyze security and peace proposals that develop different solutions to the “iron fist” policy. The learning philosophy of our seminar is inspired by the methods of popular education (Freire, 1997), with the objective of producing critical thinking collectively. close

Suggested reading

Freire, P. (1997): Pedagogia da esperança: um reencontro com a pedagogia do oprimido. Sa~o Paulo: Paz e Terra. Harvey, D. (2007). Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 610(1), 21–44. Hochmu¨ller, M., Solar, C., & Pe´rez Ricart, C. A. (2024). Militarism and militarization in Latin America: Introduction to the special issue. Alternatives, 49(4), 209–216. Mbembe, A. (2019). Necropolitics (S. Corcoran, Trad.). Durham: Duke University Press. close

Additional appointments

Thu, 2025-04-17 16:00 - 18:00