CALAS

KNOWLEDGE LABORATORY "A REGION IN MOTION: ACCELERATED HUMAN MOBILITIES AND MULTIPLE CIRCULATIONS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN"

The Americas, and Latin America and the Caribbean in particular, appear to be an outstanding case for studying how movement, mobility, and migration constantly reshape space. This Knowledge Laboratory highlights how spaces emerge in the first place through human movement, with the creation of the Americas being the prime example that also demonstrates the processes of spatial transformation through colonial occupation. One of its goals is to reconstruct historically fundamental spatial reconfigurations of the past.

The Laboratory focuses primarily on the contemporary history and present of Latin America and the Caribbean. Since the second half of the 20th century, the subcontinent has appeared to be in motion, with internal migrations and rural exoduses, as well as displacements and exiles due to armed conflicts and political persecution. These spatial reconceptualizations can be approached from various meaning-making practices, including art, literature, film, and television, or social media services in the space of intermediality. The circulation of knowledge is also linked to science and technology.

The Knowledge Laboratory aims to contribute to transnational reflection from a relational perspective on human mobilities and displacements, which take on new aspects every day. In this way, it opens debates and contributes to solutions on the various aspects of knowledge and its strategic role in this situation of accelerations. The goal is to propose possible horizons that provide inclusive responses to the demands that these transformations entail. At issue is how the mobility of people relates to the circulation of goods, materials, and ideas, conceived as an unequal exchange between people, places, groups, and cultures interacting with non-human elements, which includes a diversity of migratory movements as well as their effects.

Research areas:

Human mobility, circulation of ideas, and new meaning-making practices – transnational cultures and global political cultures.
Space in motion: mobility and the reconfiguration of space, as well as the creation of new spaces.
New forms of (dis)integration, (in)equality, and social cohesion in processes of accelerated mobility and multiple circulation.
Mobility and accelerations in the workplace and the new social question.