Janey Fellows David Bond and Luis Herr√°n will be presenting their most recent work based on the 2011/2012 Janey Summer Fellowship they were awarded.

All sessions are free and open to the New School community.

Luis Herr√°n: “Revolution Through Reaction: Anti-Communism and the “National Revolution” in Argentina, 1955-1966“

Abstract: This paper explores some of the ideological features of Argentine anti-communism and its relation to the changing trajectories within Argentine nationalism, especially after the fall of Per√≥n in 1955. Using archival and hemerographical sources, I illustrate some of the convergences and tensions between state and non-state anti-communist initiatives, aiming at a clearer understanding of the politico-ideological articulation between the activism of extreme right-wing groups and the gradual steering of state institutions towards an “anti-subversive” orientation. Broadly, my argument is that despite the key role of anti-communism as a lingua franca for the ideological construction of the “enemies of the nation,” the intensity of the peronista / anti-peronista divide, along with the impact of Third World nationalisms, caused an implosion of the myths of nacionalismo. This opened a range of possibilities for re-signifying “the national revolution,” through unorthodox combinations, ruptures and cross-overs between anti-communism, militarism, Catholicism, anti-imperialism and a primordial and often violent revolutionary impulse.

David Bond: “What’s a Mangrove Worth?”

Abstract: This paper traces the history of an idea as it bounced between Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Ecosystem valuation, now an established scientific and legal method of putting a price on natural environments, was developed in response to a series of coastal oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these oil spills, while inflicting minimal damage to areas of dense human settlement, destroyed large swathes of mangroves. The big question in subsequent (transnational) legal battles over damages became: How much are mangroves worth? This paper, describing the peculiar settings and shifting dimensions of this question, explores the political history of ‘ecosystem valuation.’ Like other facts in science, the popularity of ‘ecosystem valuation’ has erased the specific context of its development and has, in a way, generalized the mangroves of the Gulf of Mexico as a stand-in for nature writ large. This paper ends with an ethnographic analysis of how ‘ecosystem valuation’ is being used in response to the BP Oil Spill.