Conversation

Imperialism and Latin America: Land Grabbing of Garífuna Communities

Thu, Oct 26, 2017

6:30 PM–8:00 PM

Room C198

This event will be livestreamed, to watch the livestream, click here starting at 6:30 pm.

In Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America, Professor Todd Gordon documents Indigenous struggles across the region to defend their ancestral rights and territories from the incursion of transnational capital. He argues that the appropriation of the Garífuna commons is possible due to the complicity of the Honduran state, leaving the Garífuna land protectors and human rights advocates in an alarming state of defenselessness. This panel will analyze the relationship between emergent imperialisms in Canada and the dispossession and resettlement of the Black-Indigenous Garífuna peoples in Honduras.

Join us for this timely and important discussion with Todd Gordon (Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario) in conversation with members of OFRANEH, a federation of Garífuna peoples seeking common defense of their cultural and territorial rights and their survival as a differentiated culture, including Miriam Miranda (General Coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, Coordinator of the Platform of Social and Popular Movements of Honduras, and Coordinator of the Indigenous and Black Women of Honduras), and Carla Garcia (International Relations Coordinator at OFRANEH).

Cosponsored by AELLA (the Association of Latino and Latin American students at the Graduate Center, CUNY); OFRANEH; Art, Activism, and the Environment research group from the Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research;The Doctoral Students’ Council at the Graduate Center, CUNY; QUNY; and Popol Wuj Itinerante.

Participants

Todd Gordon

Todd Gordon is the co-author (with Jeffery Webber) of Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America and Imperialist Canada. He is an Assistant Professor of Law and Society and Social Justice and Community Engagement at Laurier University in Brantford, Ontario.

Miriam Miranda

Miriam Miranda is the General Coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, OFRANEH. She also coordinates the Platform of Social and Popular Movements of Honduras, which she co-founded with Berta Cáceres, and serves at the National Coordination for the Indigenous and Black Women of Honduras. She is globally renowned for her defense of the cultural and territorial rights of the Garífuna peoples for over 30 years. She has received plenty of international recognition including the 2016 Carlos Escalera award for her untiring defense of the ancestral Garífuna territory in Honduras and the 2015 Food Sovereignty Prize for promoting food sovereignty in the Garífuna communities. Over the years, Miriam Miranda has traveled around the US and visited many campuses to create awareness and mobilize solidarity with the Garífuna. In 2001, she participated in the Indigenous Peoples Summit of the Americas in Quebec, Canada.

Carla Garcia

Carla Garcia is the International Relations Coordinator at OFRANEH. She came to the US in 2013 and works with the Garífuna communities in NY. She has a history of activism and participation in civic action for over 20 years and serves as representative of culture at the national and international level of the Ballet Nacional Folklórico Garífuna.

OFRANEH

OFRANEH was founded in 1978 as a federation of Garífuna peoples seeking common defense of their cultural and territorial rights and their survival as a differentiated culture. Through a network of community radios, the organization promotes health and environmental education, supports the use of the Garífuna language, and promotes youth and women’s leadership development. OFRANEH has represented the Garífuna Peoples in national and international courts, recently winning two landmark cases- Triunfo de la Cruz and Punta Piedra – in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In both cases, the court found the Honduran State responsible for violating the collective ownership rights of the Garífuna communities. The ruling sets an important precedent in Honduras as well as internationally as it unequivocally re-affirms the state’s obligation to free, prior and informed consent as established under the 169 Convention of the International Labor Organization.