The Crises of Capitalism in the Americas Research Network (COCARN) was launched at an inaugural event held on 20 June 2011. By bringing together with extensive expertise in the history of the region, COCARN provides an institutional and intellectual framework, focused at ISA, to enable the development of collaborative research and research facilitation initiatives that enhance our understanding of key crises in the history of capitalism in the Americas and their impact on the region’s economies and societies, open new avenues for inter and multidisciplinary research on the history of capitalism that frame the American experience in a broader global context, and help shape current debates on the causes, nature, and consequences of the current global crisis. 

The first event, ‘The Great Depression and its Legacies in the Americas’, held on 20 June 2011, explored the social and political legacies of the Great Depression of the 1930s on the Americas. The current global financial crisis has produced (i) a new vantage point from which to re-assess the history of what remains (although that may change) the deepest economic crisis of the modern era and (ii) a re-assessment in policy circles of the nature, impact, and responses to the Great Depression. The aim of this conference was to encourage historians of the region widen the focus on the Great Depression beyond its economic history to consider the broader social, institutional, and political context and consequences of the slump while paying careful attention to the ways in which hemispheric transformations were shaped by and in turn helped shape global processes. 

The papers presented at this inaugural conference, funded by the School of Advanced Study Dean’s Development Fund and now available on the ISA website, enhance our understanding of this crucial episode in the history of the region and its impact on its societies and also provide scholars a timely and uniquely useful comparative perspective on the current crisis. So far, as in the 1930s, while the US has been hit hard by the crisis, much of Latin America appears to have weathered its economic impact better than other regions. But the broader legacies of the current crisis in the Americas are only now coming into focus.

COCARN’s second event, Crisis, Response and Recovery: A Decade on from the Argentinazo 2001-11, is organised jointly with the Argentine Research Students Network (ARSN). This one-day conference, to be held on 8 December 2011, seeks to bring together scholars and professionals working on Argentina from a range of disciplines in order to debate and discuss short and long-term response to 2001 crisis in Argentina and subsequent trajectories of recovery. The term ‘response’ is not limited to the sphere of economic/political economy, but also encompasses the societal, cultural and literary fields.  This interdisciplinary conference thus welcomes abstracts on a wide variety of topics, such as cinematic representation of crisis, social activism and mobilisation, macro-economic and fiscal reform and shifts in state policy. In view of the current financial crisis in the West, this country-focused and timely conference proposes to analyse the effects of crisis and how it can be addressed, with a view to examining and reflecting on the ways in which recovery is undertaken in societal, cultural, economic and political spheres.

Further information on the conference, and on how to submit paper abstracts, is available here

If you would like further information or have any queries about the network, please contact Dr Paulo Drinot