<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div id="comp-l0wmezb1" class="_3bcaz _2Hij5" data-testid="richTextElement"><h1 class="font_0"><span style="font-size: 18px;" class="">Crisis and Cryptos in Latin America</span></h1><h1 class="font_0"><span style="font-size: 18px;" class="">One-day seminar organized by Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and CEDLA</span></h1><div class=""><a href="https://www.cedla.nl/seminar-crisis-and-criptos-in-latin-america" class="">https://www.cedla.nl/seminar-crisis-and-criptos-in-latin-america</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">When: 29 September 2022 </div></div><div id="comp-l0wl37mv" class="_2GqI3"><div role="list" class="_3R-H1"><div class="_3Rcdf"><div role="listitem" class="_3iVFe"><div id="comp-l0wl37n6__item1" class="_1vNJf"><div data-mesh-id="comp-l0wl37n6__item1inlineContent" data-testid="inline-content" class=""><div data-mesh-id="comp-l0wl37n6__item1inlineContent-gridContainer" data-testid="mesh-container-content" class=""><div id="comp-l0wl37nj1__item1" class="_3bcaz _2Hij5" data-testid="richTextElement"><p class="font_8">Time: 13.30-18.00 (with drinks until 19.00) </p><p class="font_8">Venue: at CEDLA in room 202</p><p class="font_8">Audience: Master students and researchers Leiden, UvA, VU, UU </p><p class="font_8">Amount: around 50 participants (to be confirmed soon)</p><p class="font_8">Form: Hybrid </p><div class="">For decades, various countries
in Latin America and the Caribbean have faced persistent economic
challenges, such as chronic inflation, hyperinflation, and far-reaching
economic constraints due to international trading sanctions and closed
borders related to geopolitical interests and global energy markets.
These regional economic precarities have pushed both lower and
middle-class communities in Latin America and the Caribbean to look for
alternatives when they see again their income evaporate and empty ATMs.
The recent Covid-19 crisis has once more revealed how unexpected
economic backlashes, tied to overlapping health and (geo)political
crises, further exacerbate existing economic and social inequalities in
the region. </div><p class="font_8">At the same time, we are
facing an enormous growth of new digital solutions for day-to-day
economic exchange and trade in Latin America. One of the most widespread
recent trends associated to digital economies is bitcoin and other
global cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum, or local criptomonedas, such
as el petro in Venezuela. The premises of freedom, decentralization,
autonomy, self-learning, and resistance –renewed promises deriving from
the invention of the blockchain– has increasingly attracted many Latin
American and Caribbean communities (Pinheiro and Vasen 2021).</p><p class="font_8">On the one hand,
cryptocurrencies’ autonomy from formal bank systems and national borders
through a peer-to-peer exchange with mobile phones and PCs provide
interesting new venues for local communities that are otherwise excluded
from local cash flows and global financial markets due chronic
inaccessibility to stable currencies and steady markets. On the other
hand, the extraction of cryptocurrencies (or crypto mining) creates new
rent opportunities that benefit from the often cheap or almost free
energy supplies and geopolitical gray zones with modest energy policies,
such as countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, El Salvador, and Cuba.
The new digital solutions have turned into safe-havens for many people
living in these crisis-driven and troubled economies (Cifuentes 2019;
Musialkowska et al. 2020; Rosales 2019). Latin America is now even now
coined as the continent for exponential growth in future payments and
remittances by means of cryptocurrencies.</p><p class="font_8">The flip side of such digital
promises and practices is that crypto mining and crypto trading in these
countries often reflect survival rather than choice (Johnson 2019).
Similarly, the new digital solutions often reproduce existing risks
related to the international economic sanctions, corruption and
financial fraud (Tankha 2022). Finally, these new investment
technologies exponentially increase energy consumption and hence
jeopardize local and regional initiatives for sustainable development to
mitigate climate change (Howson 2021).</p><p class="font_8">In this one-day seminar,
organized by Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam and the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation
at Universiteit van Amsterdam, we will plunge into Latin American and
Caribbean realities of contemporary economic crisis and local worlds of
cryptocurrency together with a group of interdisciplinary scholars (e.g.
law, geography and environmental science, political science, and
anthropology) that all work on expanding crypto economies. The focus
areas will be on El Salvador and Venezuela– both Latin American and
Caribbean economies that face steep economic challenges and protracted
economic crises with local communities that are increasingly
participating in crypto mining and crypto trading. </p><p class="font_8"><span class="color_24">Presenters and discussant </span></p>
<ul class="font_8">
<li class=""><p class="font_8">Dr. Pete Howson, Senior Lecturer in Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle UK. </p>
</li>
<li class=""><p class="font_8">Dr. Antulio Rosales, Assistant Professor in Political Science, University of Brunswick, Canada. </p>
</li>
<li class=""><p class="font_8">Dr. Coco Kanters, Assistant Professor in Liberal Arts, Utrecht University </p></li></ul><p class="font_8"><span class="color_24">Day program </span></p><p class="font_8">13.30-13.45 Welcome Eva van Roekel and CEDLA (Hogenboom, Weegels or Koonings) </p><p class="font_8">13.45-14.15 Peter Howson: What is the blockchain? </p><p class="font_8">14.15-15.00 Viewing Howson excerpts film on cryptos with a guiding question for discussion. </p><p class="font_8">15.00-15.15 Coffee break </p><p class="font_8">15.15-15.45 Peter Howson: nexus cryptos & crisis </p><p class="font_8">15.45-16.15 Antulio Rosales: El Salvador </p><p class="font_8">16.15-16.30 Coffee break </p><p class="font_8">16.30-17.00 Antulio Rosales: Venezuela </p><p class="font_8">17.00-17.45 Recap of discussant Coco Kanters with Q&A </p><p class="font_8">17.45-18.00 Closing words Eva and CEDLA </p><p class="font_8">18.00-19.00 Drinks and informal discussion <br class=""></p><p class="font_8"><span class="color_24">Please register here: <a href="mailto:eva.van.roekel@vu.nl?subject=Crisis and cryptos in Latin America" target="_self" class="">+INFO</a></span></p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="line-height: 1.4em;" class=""><span class="wixGuard"></span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>