CLACS People

Staff
Associate Fellows
Visiting Fellows and Scholars

Staff

CLACS Director
Dr Ainhoa Montoya
Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies

Ms Celia Barlow
Editorial Administrator, Journal of Latin American Studies

Mr Julio Cazzasa
Latin American Studies Collection Development Coordinator

Professor Catherine Davies
Professor Emerita

Dr Rupert Knox
Research Assistant

Professor Linda Newson
Professor Emerita

Dr Naomi Wells
Lecturer in Modern Languages (Italian/Spanish) with Digital Humanities

Associate Fellows

Associate Fellows
Dr Jonathan Alderman
Dr Helga Baitenmann
Dr Giuliana Borea
Dr Pablo Bradbury
Dr Diogo De Carvalho Cabral
Dr Michela Coletta
Dr Jon Curry-Machado
Dr Archie Davies
Dr Camila Gatica Mizala
Dr Niall Geraghty
Dr Katerina Hatzikidi
Dr Grace Livingstone
Dr Nadia Mosquera
Dr Claudia Murray
Dr Malayna Raftopoulos
Dr Jessica Sklair
Professor Jean Stubbs
Dr William Tantam
Dr Jack Webb

Visiting Fellows

Early Career Fellowship in Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Oscar Webber received his PhD in History from the University of Leeds in 2018 and taught British and Caribbean history at the LSE between 2019 and 2021. His doctoral research examined British responses to disaster in the Caribbean and he is currently writing his first monograph based on that research entitled Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907. The book will be published in 2022 by Manchester University Press as part of their ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series. It will shed new light on the ways in which British colonialism shaped experiences of disaster in the Caribbean and gave rise to epiphenomenal crises and hampered resilience building efforts. It will also explore how British poor relief policy intersected with colonial ideas of race to create punitive ‘relief’ efforts that provide us with a new window onto the continuities between slavery and the post-emancipation era. More broadly Oscar’s research concerns the environmental history of the British Empire and its role in enhancing present day disaster vulnerability in formally colonised nations. During his Early Career Fellowship at CLACS, Oscar will be researching the Belizean Hurricane of 1931 and investigating an accusation that early warnings of the storm were covered up by the colonial authorities as well as looking at the hurricane’s wider impact on the nascent Belizean labour movement. [January-June 2022]

Current Visiting Fellows

Elizabeth Chant is Assistant Professor in Hispanic Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research considers how nature has been understood in the Americas as an object to be consumed, with a special focus on visual culture. Liz’s PhD, ‘Demystifying Desolation: Representing Patagonian Nature, 1745-1956’, was completed at University College London in 2021. This project analysed conflicting cultural representations of Patagonia in modern-day Argentina and Chile in order to elucidate how the trope of Patagonian desolation was both perpetuated and dismissed in the facilitation of acts of annexation, colonisation, and extraction. She is currently developing a monograph based on her thesis while also advancing a new research project that will explore domestic tourism to industrial sites in former frontier territories in Argentina, Chile, and the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. Her research has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Society for Latin American Studies, and the ARTES Iberian and Latin American Visual Culture Group, and a Royal Historical Society Centenary Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study. She is also a co-convenor of the Maius Workshop, which runs seminars and training programs for early career researchers in Hispanic studies, and has previously been funded by the Spanish Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [October 2021-June 2022] 

Eve Hayes de Kalaf is a sociolegal scholar with an extensive academic and professional background working in Latin America and the Caribbean. She completed her PhD at the University of Aberdeen and holds an MA from the Institute for the Study of the Americas and a BA (Hons) in Modern Language Studies, University of Nottingham. Eve also obtained a PGDip in Human Development with the United Nations at the Universidad Católica Santo Domingo and is honorary fellow at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool. She currently convenes the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) Caribbean Studies Seminar Series here at the Institute. Eve is an elected member of the Society for Latin American Studies (2019-2021, 2021-2023) and treasurer of the Haiti Support Group. Her research offers some uncomfortable insights into the use and abuse of modern-day identity-based development 'solutions' that aim to provide all people, everywhere with a legal and, increasingly, digital identity. Her book 'Legal Identity, Race and Belonging in the Dominican Republic: From Citizen to Foreigner' is to be published this year as part of the Anthem Series in Citizenship and National Identities. The publication is the first to identify a link between the promulgation of ID practices by international organisations such as the World Bank and the United Nations with arbitrary measures that retroactively stripped hundreds of thousands of native-born (largely) Haitian-descended citizens of their Dominican citizenship. [September 2021-June 2022]

Brigid Lynch is an Early Career Researcher in Latin American Cultural Studies. She completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews in 2018, where her doctoral research explored the cultural legacy of the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina. In 2019 her thesis was awarded the Annual Publication Prize of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland (AHGBI) and will be published as a monograph by Legenda in 2021, entitled Horizontalism and Historicity in Argentina: Cultural Dialogues of the Post-Crisis Era. Her research interests centre upon the intersections between popular culture, historicity, and social movements, with a recent focus on transnational links of solidarity between Scotland and Latin America during the Cold War. As a Visiting Fellow at CLACS, Brigid will be developing a new research project that examines the history of the theme park in Argentina and how, during the Kirchner era of government (2003-2015), themed and immersive leisure spaces were central to shaping popular concepts of citizenship and belonging. [October 2021-March 2022] 

Current Visiting Scholars

Francisco Amor-Martin

Emilia Ziosi is a PhD student in Studies on Organized Crime at the University of Milan and a Visiting Student at the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS). Her research focuses on the influence of social, political and economic factors on organised crime in Honduras. Her research interests include the relations between organised crime, the state and civil society, as well as the interconnections between legal and illegal governance. Emilia also holds a BSc in Economics and Management from the University of Trento, Italy, and a MSc in Organised Crime, Terrorism and Security from the University of Essex, UK, where she conducted research on the perceptions of insecurity and fear of gang violence in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. [October 2021-June 2022] 

Visiting Fellows 2020-2021