KU center hosts conference, online presentations on colonialism in Central America

LAWRENCE — Indigenous and Afro-Central American leaders from all seven Central American countries presented June 26-27 about the current situation of their groups in historical perspective at a symposium led by the University of Kansas Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies. The symposium took place at the University of Costa Rica’s Centro de Investigación en Identidad y Cultura Latinoamericanas.

KU CLACS has now published the video recordings of the presentations with English subtitles from Reflections on Five Centuries of Colonialism in Central America, with an edited volume forthcoming.

The speakers addressed topics including tragic histories of oppression and ongoing territorial and cultural dispossession — including land grabs by the tourist and oil palm industries — flooding of communities behind hydroelectric dams, contamination from mining, repression and co-optation of indigenous political parties, and erasure from official state education. 

“This presents a rare opportunity for the U.S. public, to whom National Resource Centers like ours are ultimately accountable, to hear about the conditions and perspectives of indigenous and Afro-Central American groups who are often sidelined in national discourses,” said Brent Metz, director of CLACS and KU professor of anthropology. “For the leaders themselves, it was an opportunity to realize that they are not alone in the challenges they face and to discuss strategies.”

A full list of presenters:

• Alí García Segura (Bribri – Costa Rica) 
• Daisy Magaly Lázaro Quesada (Boruca – Costa Rica) 
• Lilliam García Rodríguez (Ngobe – Costa Rica) 
• Atencio López Martínez (Guna - Panamá) 
• Omayra Casama (Embará - Panamá) 
• Xiomara Cacho (Garífuna - Honduras) 
• Marielba Herrera Reina (Afrosalvadoran – El Salvador) 
• Tininiska Rivera (Miskito - Nicaragua, refugee in Costa Rica)
• Juan Carlos Ocampo (Magyagna - Nicaragua, refugee in Costa Rica)
• Nora Trino (Miskito - Honduras) 
• Rendel Hebberth Liberty (Magyagna – Nicaragua, refugee in Costa Rica)
• Filiberto Penados (Yucatec Maya - Belice)
• Lina Barrios (Mam Maya - Guatemala)
• Carlos Fredy (K’iche’ Maya - Guatemala) 

Partner organizations are the University of Arizona’s Center for Latin American Studies, the University of Albany’s Department of African, Latin American, Caribbean, & Latinx Studies, and the Universidad de Costa Rica’s Centro de Investigación en Identidad y Cultura Latinoamericanas.