Informal Lecture Series
Informal Lecture Series
The informal lecture series is an effort by Villa Esperanza to provide a forum in which volunteers, nonprofits, and anyone interested in the challenges of social and economic justice can participate. Every gathering is led by an expert in the topic being discussed. The structure is informal and participatory.
We look forward to seeing you at our next lecture. Everyone is welcome!
If you have any questions about the lecture series, or you have a topic you would like us to present, please send us an email to info@villa-esperanza.org
Previous Lectures
Water: Thirsty Fields and the Elixir of Life with Charles Porter
October 7th, 2009
While the availability of water affects all humans, lack of access to water and to viable irrigation systems has a particularly devastating impact on disadvantaged communities.
Charles Porter’s presentation focuses on the need for successful irrigation systems designed to create a “living or on-going total system” approach. His talk references ineffective infrastructure projects in northern Mexico and south Texas where thousands of hectares of fields surrounded by concrete channels ready to deliver the elixir of life to thirsty fields have laid fallow for years, and addresses the consequences this has had on poor, agrarian communities.
Impact of Global Financial Crisis in Impoverished Communities Abroad with Gwen Sullivan, PhD
May 18, 2009
How is the global financial crisis unfolding in impoverished communities around the world? How are households responding to the immediate impacts on their livelihoods and their access to basic goods and services? Dr. Gwen Sullivan will locate local accounts of crisis within the broader story of inequality in power and wealth in today’s global economy. She will draw on the preliminary findings of participatory researchers in six countries.
Gwen Sullivan teaches in the Global Understanding Program at St. Edward’s University. She is also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas. Gwen lived and worked in Nicaragua during much of the 1980s and ‘90s. She received her doctorate from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.
Ecuador, its people, culture and social realities with Michelle Wibbelsman, PhD
April 13th, 2009
Michelle Wibbelsman is originally from Ecuador. She got her M.A. in Latin American Studies at UT and her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She has focused her research on issues of public performance, religion and ritual, subaltern politics, and cultural change among indigenous communities in the Andes. Currently she is a Research Fellow at the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at The University of Texas and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at St. Edward’s University.
Join us