Bridging the Americas: Ideas,Praxis and Belonging

In its 50^th anniversary, let’s celebrate Latin American Perspectives for its pivotal role in bridging the Americas through the promotion of constructive dialogue and action across geographical, social, political, cultural, and other boundaries. LAP is an exception to the rule and its survival reflects the quality of its curated scholarship as well as its editors’ and authors’ loyal commitment to the idea that transterritorialism and boldness are strategically central to the overarching struggles for social justice and equity across the continent and beyond.

Decolonial, diverse and inclusive before these became fashionable or required, LAP embodied a vessel of dissent within the belly of the beast. Anti-imperial, radical, and action-oriented, the journal never hesitated about the validity of research that was transparent about its underlying politics or articulate about its applied goals. Subjectivities and ideologies were embraced while securing academic rigor, building on a long-lasting, although contested, tradition of weaving scholarship with praxis, academia with sociopolitical consciousness and purpose, science with society. ¹

A Latin American feminist scholar activist residing in the United States but working transnationally, I witnessed these qualities in three distinct ways. As a reader, an author, and a guest editor, my interactions with the journal were enriching as well as reassuring. In/with LAP, I was able to find an echo. LAP was like a soundbox that confirmed that I was not alone, strange, confused, unwanted or useless. Contrarily, it offered resonance and, in that way, became like a lifesaver to me. Indeed, it grounded me and allowed me not to feel excluded as an academic. Through LAP, I found a community of belonging away from my homeland.

As an author, LAP was the first journal that provided me with helpful feedback and treated me with humanity when I submitted “Neoliberalism, Corruption, and the Legacies of Contention: Argentina’s Social Movements, 1993-2006” (Villalón, 2007). And, when that happened, I could make better sense of the quality of the articles I had read before. Because it showed. When one read LAP articles, one could tell that the writers were not isolated through the process or fighting with some invisible enemy to express their mind. The fact that reviewers treated manuscript authors as peers, provided insightful comments and engaged in a rich conversation to refine ideas (as opposed to thinking of them as subordinates and crafting paralyzing critiques to show that they knew more and better) transpired in the final product that we could enjoy as readers. The articles were thought-provoking and mobilizing: the collectivity of knowledge-building could be perceived, and the connections between thinking, feeling, and doing were manifest. Fortunately, these virtues continue to describe LAP today.

When years later I submitted a proposal to edit a special issue on “The Resurgence of Collective Memory, Truth and Justice Mobilizations in Latin America” (Villalón, 2015; 2016a; 2016b), I encountered a similarly enabling experience. The response of the editors was not only enthusiastic but also supportive: I could tell that I was not going to fend off on my own. Rather, as a guest editor, I knew I could count on the journal to develop the collection in the best possible way. Moreover, I felt particularly in tune with their counter-hegemonic language justice policy – another especial characteristic of LAP that had set it apart from most other journals in the United States because it had welcomed submissions in Spanish and Portuguese to be later translated to English at no charge to the author once the article had been accepted for publication. This particularity allowed the issue to include several groundbreaking articles from authors who wrote in their native language, and in that way, LAP facilitated the process of transnationalizing knowledge beyond idiomatic barriers.

While I promoted the call for papers throughout Latin America, LAP was eager to receive more and more submissions. Given the quality of the papers and the relevance of the novel sociohistorical process we were documenting, the editorial team asked me to do a second, and later, a third volume of the special issue – an offer that I was absolutely committed and excited to accept. The result was remarkable: we were able to compile cutting-edge research about ten countries that had been witnessing the (re)emergence of memory, truth and justice processes in this century written by thirty-five international authors from the perspective of critical epistemologies from the South “in an effort to debunk inequalities of knowledge and power” (Villalón; 2017, 7). An academic achievement that was also, and evidently, a political one; because LAP had been long devoted to fostering progressive scholarship that wouldn’t hide its drive or beliefs, and understood that there are

social problems before us demanding careful study, questions awaiting satisfactory answers. We must study, we must investigate, we must attempt to solve; and the utmost that the world can demand is, not lack of human interest and moral conviction, but rather the heart-quality of fairness, and an earnest desire for the truth despite its possible unpleasantness (DuBois, 1899: 3).

Accordingly, LAP recommended the three-part issue to be transformed into one of the volumes of the Latin American Perspectives in the Classroom Series to focus on the pedagogical aspects of the collection (Villalón, 2017). During the process of submitting the book proposal to Rowman & Littlefield, I recall another instance that would switch how I had been pushed to doubt about my ability to express myself in the United States: when a representative from the press questioned my way of writing in English, specifically the long sentences, the managing editor of LAP, Ron Chilcote, intervened in my favor and stated that my work was perfectly readable and reflective of complex ideas as well as my voice as a Latin American scholar. Besides its editorial and language practices, another aspect to commend about LAP is that it has been genuinely interested in their authors’ and editors’ input beyond their submissions or reviews. LAP has involved their contributors in gatherings and events at conferences and virtually to create further opportunities to think, plan and act collectively. More importantly, it has done this in a democratic, non-extractivist and decolonial manner: always learning with and giving credit to those involved in the process and disseminating the outcomes respectfully and in multiple and accessible ways to reach a wide audience.

For these and many more reasons than could fit in the allotted space for these essays, I stand to applaud the 50^th anniversary of Latin American Perspectives, our dear LAP, and wish to continue walking along its community of readers, authors, and editors, while enjoying and multiplying that invaluable echo that brought a sense of belonging to many Latin American scholar activists like me, beyond and despite borders. ¡Salud!