LAC-EU Network Newsletter | Spring 2026

The MSCA LAC-EU doctoral network reached its mid-point in February 2026, a significant milestone after two years of intense activity. Since launching, the network has recruited all twelve doctoral candidates, held two network events and a summer school, initiated secondments (temporary research stays at partner institutions), and fostered countless collaborations across partner institutions. This edition covers highlights from the past six months, introduces the second cohort of fellows in our "Get to know our Fellows" series, and looks ahead to what's coming this summer and autumn.

Publications

Our fellows have been active contributors to academic and policy debates. Luca Venga (Sciences Po) published an open-access article on the Zapatista movement in Chiapas in Territory, Politics, Governance. Ana Obando and Joaquín Caprarulo (both at KU Leuven) reported on the EU-CELAC Summit in Santa Marta for the EULAS blog, joined by Natalia Escoffier (IBEI), who contributed a dedicated piece on the Pact for Care, one of the summit's landmark outcomes. Meanwhile, Luciana Coube Cardoso (IBEI) offered a timely analysis of global environmental governance in the face of COP 30 in Belém, which she attended in November 2025. 

Events 

The first months of 2026 brought the network together in several formats and locations.

In February, the roundtable "Towards Care Societies" at Casa Amèrica Catalunya brought together prominent voices, including Ana Güezmes García (CEPAL), Leire Pajín (European Parliament), Inma Alonso (former coordinator of the EU-LAC Civil Society Working Group), Anna Barrera (EU-LAC Foundation), and Andrea Costafreda (Generalitat de Catalunya). The session, moderated by LAC-EU doctoral candidate Natalia Escoffier, brought together a rich and engaging discussion and is now available to watch on YouTube.

In March, the network convened for its Second Network Event, hosted by FLACSO Argentina in Buenos Aires. As the only network event taking place in Latin America, the meeting held particular significance for the project. The programme featured two thought-provoking open roundtable discussions — one on migration, and another on abortion rights in Argentina (available on YouTube) — alongside dedicated training sessions for doctoral candidates. We are deeply grateful to FLACSO Argentina for their support and for making this event possible.

Following the Buenos Aires gathering, many network members travelled to Rio de Janeiro for the EULAS Conference at PUC-Rio, co-organised by the EULAS Jean Monnet Network and PUC-Rio, an associated partner of LAC-EU. The conference provided an important opportunity to further strengthen academic exchanges and collaboration within LAC-EU and across both networks.

LAC-EU was also present at LASA, one of the leading international conferences for Latin American studies, which this year celebrated its 60th anniversary in Paris. In a panel titled "Beyond Shared Frameworks: Contestation and Cooperation in the Evolving EU-LAC Relationship", organized by the doctoral candidates themselves, Ana Obando (KU Leuven), Luca Venga (Sciences Po), Joaquín Caprarulo (KU Leuven), and Gustavo Cadenas Delascio (University of Oslo) presented findings from their ongoing research. The panel was chaired by Anna Ayuso (CIDOB) and Ricardo Gamboa (Universidad de Chile), both associated partners of the LAC-EU Doctoral Network.

Secondments

Eight of LAC-EU's twelve doctoral candidates are currently undertaking temporary research stays at partner institutions across four different cities. At PUC-Rio in Rio de Janeiro, Luciana Coube Cardoso (IBEI), Victoria Frois (University of York), and Gabrielle Leite (University of York) are combining their academic stay with fieldwork on Brazilian case studies. In Santiago, Tamara Albarracín Sánchez (University of Barcelona), Alice Blukacz (FLACSO Argentina), and Natalia Escoffier (IBEI) are doing the same at the Universidad de Chile. Domonkos Bánki (FLACSO Argentina) has joined IPRI-Nova in Lisbon for his academic secondment, while Gustavo Cadenas Delascio (University of Oslo) is undertaking a non-academic secondment at the EU-LAC Foundation in Hamburg.

Coordinated to follow the Buenos Aires network event, these stays reflect LAC-EU's commitment not only to research excellence and international collaboration, but also to reducing the network's carbon footprint by minimising transatlantic travel.

Get to know our fellows

In the previous newsletter, we introduced six of our twelve fellows. Get to know the remaining six here! They tell us about their research projects and what motivated them to pursue a PhD.

Alice Blukacz (FLACSO Argentina)

My doctoral research project examines the changes in the design and implementation of public policies related to the health of international migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, I am interested in investigating the effect these changes had on the State’s resilience in addressing the needs of international migrants in the Southern Cone in the face of future crises, using Argentina and Chile as case studies.

My research lies at the intersection of studies on regional migration, health inequities, and public policy in crisis contexts. The focus on migration governance and access to healthcare offers an opportunity to examine theoretical and policy issues related to citizenship and the rights of specific population groups, as well as potential improvements in State capacities and increased resilience in the face of future crises.

My interest in this topic comes from my experience researching healthcare access among international migrants in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessing the impact of the crisis on health systems, migration management, and the social rights of international migrants.

Tamara Albarracín Sánchez (University of Barcelona)

My research aims to map the presence of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) women writers in Europe in the 21st century and to analyse their trajectories through a sociological lens. Specifically, I explore how migration reconfigures literary trajectories, political identities, subjectivities, and artistic practices, and how LAC women writers in Europe resist the capitalist-colonialist logic of appropriation and domestication imposed on their literary heritage. For my research, I adopt a situated and reflexive approach, grounded in my prior training in transnational feminist epistemologies.

While living in Montevideo, a deeply literary city, I became fascinated by the trajectories of LAC women writers, which reveal the power dynamics shaping global literary production and reception. This motivated me to examine how LAC women writers negotiate their positions within the European literary field, develop alternative editorial strategies, challenge monolingualism, produce counter-hegemonic narratives, and expose ambivalent processes of integration.

Victoria Frois (University of York)

My research examines how civil society actors - particularly women’s and human rights movements - mobilize, form coalitions, and adapt their strategies in response to growing authoritarian pressures. In recent years, far-right movements worldwide have weaponized moral conservatism, opposing feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and progressive social policies. In Latin America, where Evangelical and Catholic churches play a crucial role in right-wing mobilization, reproductive rights have become a key battleground. In this sense, the struggle over abortion rights provides a revealing lens through which to examine how civil society actors contest and resist far-right authoritarian agendas in Brazil.

My interest in democracy, authoritarianism, and populism began with my own experience as a Venezuelan. Living through my country’s democratic collapse under Chavismo made me want to understand how and why democracies break down. This curiosity led me to study social sciences and later political science, focusing on populist and authoritarian experiences in Venezuela and Argentina. After several years analyzing democratic backsliding, I decided to turn the question around: instead of studying how democracy dies, I now study how it survives - and the role that civil society plays in defending it.

Luciana Coube Cardoso (IBEI)

My research explores how heterogeneous transnational networks primarily composed by municipalities have emerged and multiplied within global environmental governance, with a focus on the Amazon basin. These networks increasingly act as legitimate actors: they articulate the demands of subnational governments on the global stage, while also testing policies and technologies locally.

More specifically, I aim to understand the conditions that allow these city networks to influence global environmental governance. Focusing on the Amazon Forum of Cities—created in 2023 under the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization to exchange knowledge and develop sustainable development projects—I analyze how power and interests are configured among actors in this evolving transnational space. This approach helps identify where such networks play a greater or lesser role within global environmental governance, revealing how new forms of planet-scale cooperation are unfolding in real time in the Amazon.

My research interests grow from my academic background in International Relations and Urban Public Policy, as well as from my professional experience working for and with transnational city networks. Subnational governments have long been overlooked in International Relations and in cooperation frameworks. This picture is starting to change, and my research aims to contribute to that shift.

Ana Obando (KU Leuven)

My research examines the legal nature and enforceability of labour provisions in the free trade agreements between the European Union and Latin American countries (EU-LAC FTAs). Specifically, I try to understand how these provisions interact with trade policy and international labor law by focusing on the main FTAs between LAC countries and regions (Central America, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Mercosur) and the EU.

As free trade agreements play an increasingly important geopolitical role both as instruments of economic growth and as vehicles for the projection of normative values, there is a need to understand how an essential part of those FTAs, such as the labour provisions of the Trade and Sustainability Chapters, are legally designed and to what extent they create enforceable obligations between the parties.

On a more personal note, this research project allows me to combine my initial training as a Colombian lawyer with a strong interest in labour law, together with my academic background and professional experience in Europe in the field of international economic law. Ultimately, I aspire to contribute to fostering stronger relations between my continent of origin and my continent of adoption.

Gabrielle Leite (University of York)

My research examines adolescent pregnancy in Brazil as a phenomenon that cannot be understood in isolation from the social, economic, political, and institutional structures that shape girls’ and women’s reproductive lives. The project explores how public policies related to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are designed and implemented, how they are translated in contexts marked by structural vulnerability in the country, and how women who experienced teenage motherhood within these contexts understand their reproductive rights and to which extent existing policies meaningfully respond to their needs.

My interest in this field is grounded in my previous work in gender policy and advocacy, where I observed how adolescent pregnancy is frequently framed as a “problem of individual behaviour.” Such framings often obscure the structural conditions—such as poverty, racial inequality, gendered power relations, and limited state presence—that shape reproductive autonomy and contribute to the persistent concentration of early pregnancy among specific territories and populations. These experiences have shaped my commitment to centring lived experience and territorial context in policy analysis, and to questioning how universal policy frameworks operate in unequal settings.

How adolescent pregnancy is conceptualised has profound implications for policy design, institutional practice, and girls’ life trajectories. Through this research, I hope to contribute to more inclusive, context-sensitive, and rights-affirming approaches to adolescent sexual and reproductive health—approaches that recognise both the right to avoid pregnancy and the right to mother with dignity and support.

Upcoming Events

On 30 June, we return to Casa Amèrica Catalunya for the next instalment of our roundtable series, América Latina y Europa frente al tablero geopolítico, featuring Detlef Nolte (GIGA), Lorena Ruano (UCM), Jordi Soler (journalist and writer), and Yanina Welp (University of Girona, Geneva Graduate Institute). The discussion will be moderated by Ramón Aymerich, Foreign Desk Chief Editor at La Vanguardia, and will focus on key developments and challenges shaping EU–Latin America relations.

Looking ahead to September 2026, the network will come together for its third network meeting following those celebrated in York in March 2025 and FLACSO Argentina in March 2026. This network event is co-organised by the University of Oslo and Sciences Po and hosted in Oslo.

We hope you enjoyed this edition of the newsletter— please feel free to share it with colleagues and friends. We look forward to reconnecting with you in six months. In the meantime, we invite you to follow us on social media (LinkedIn, X, bluesky) to stay updated on the network’s activities and upcoming events. We also wish you a wonderful summer!

Thank you for reading!

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