Research Cluster on Extractivism & Society Event: Conversación con Luis Tapia

The Research Cluster on Extractivism & Society is interested in getting together students, scholars, and social activists to talk to Professor Luis Tapia in an event in Spanish at UCSC. Luis Tapia is Professor and Coordinator of the M.A. in Critical Theory at the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Bolivia and will be visiting UCSC invited by the History of Consciousness Department. Along with Alvaro García Linera, Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, and Raul Prada, Luis Tapia was part of Grupo Comuna, an influential intellectual collective producing major breakthroughs at the start of the 2000s in social theory and analyses of Bolivian and Latin American reality.

Professor Luis Tapia has examined key topics for the present and future evolution of the region:

• State theory and state autonomy in Latin America
• The legacy of René Zavaleta Mercado and the concept of “abigarramiento”/”Sociedad abigarrada” (motley society)
• Colonial domination and internal colonialism
• Plurinationality and socio-political processes in Boliva
• Bolivia’s first MAS government, indigenous communities, and the reproduction of colonialism

This will be a unique opportunity to engage with one of the region’s most influential intellectuals and do so in Spanish.

We suggest attendees to read Chapter 3 of his book, Dialéctica del Colonialismo Interno (Traficante de Sueños, 2022), available online.

Location: Charles Merrill Lounge at UCSC
This is a hybrid event.

This event is held with support from the Latin American & Latino Studies Department, the Institute for Social Transformation, and the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas.