Newsletter 2: Our fellows, Kick-off meeting in York, Summer School in BCN

From York to Barcelona: Six Months of LAC–EU Collaboration and Growth

Welcome to the second LAC-EU Newsletter! In this edition, we look back on an eventful semester, feature the research of six of our twelve PhD fellows, and present what lies ahead in our network. For more information, check the LAC-EU website, subscribe to its newsletter, and follow our LinkedIn page.

Six months full of activities

The MSCA-DN Understanding Latin American Challenges in the 21st Century (LAC-EU) has entered its second year with a calendar full of activities. Our 12 doctoral candidates and 16 institutions have met twice since March, taken part in the LAC-EU Summer School in September, and participated in various events focused on strengthening the relationship and mutual understanding between Latin America and Europe.

In March, the doctoral candidates and experts from the LAC-EU network met in-person for the first time at the University of York. Candidates had the opportunity to discuss their research projects with senior researchers and supervisors, receiving valuable feedback from the outset. The event also included talks on the diverse topics addressed by the project and workshops on research methods tailored to doctoral candidates. The event concluded with a concert by Mestisa, a band that performs traditional and popular music from Latin America.

Six months later, PhD fellows and partners met again, this time in Barcelona, for a mid-term meeting that coincided with the LAC-EU Summer School Reimagining EU and LAC Relations. The Summer School brought together researchers and specialists working on topics ranging from climate change to human rights governance and from artificial intelligence to literary networks, all with a focus on LAC-EU relations. The event also provided a platform for doctoral candidates to present their projects, exchange feedback, and participate in a mid-term review.

The Summer School also featured a series of public roundtables. Two of them, organised by Dunia Gras from the University of Barcelona focused on literary networks: Barcelona, a Literary Capital of LAC?, which featured Andreia Moroni (Translator and General Coordinator, Instituto Guimarães Rosa Barcelona) and Eduardo Ruiz Sosa (Writer, Curator of the KM Amèrica Festival, and Editor at Candaya), and Meeting of Latin American and Caribbean Women Writers in Barcelona, which brought together three writers from Latin America: Fernanda García Lao (Argentina), Quinny Martínez Hernández (Colombia), and Teresa Ruiz Rosas (Peru).

The third roundtable, Rethinking Relations between Latin America and Europe in the Run-up to the EU–CELAC Summit, brought together speakers Andrea Costafreda, Kevin Parthenay, Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, José Antonio Sanahuja, and Claudia Zilla, and it was moderated by Jacint Jordana. The roundtable discussion can be watched here. This event was part of a recent collaboration agreement between IBEI and Casa Amèrica Catalunya, which foresees the joint organisation of activities for reflection and debate on Latin America–Europe relations over the next three years.

The roundtable further reinforced LAC-EU’s joint efforts with the Jean Monnet Policy Network EU–Latin American Synergies (EULAS), coordinated by IBEI. Earlier this year, EULAS organised a roundtable on LAC–EU relations at the Ecuadorian Consulate in Barcelona, where Andrea Bianculli (IBEI, LAC-EU and EULAS coordinator), Anna Ayuso (LAC-EU, CIDOB), and Adrián Bonilla (FLACSO, former Director of the EU–LAC Foundation), discussed the state of EU–LAC relations in the run-up to the 2025 EU–CELAC Summit.

Get to know our fellows

In this newsletter and the next one, we will share our fellows’ research projects and what motivated them to pursue a PhD. Get to know six of our twelve fellows and stay tuned to read more about them in our next newsletter!

Luca Venga (Sciences Po Paris)

In my research, I examine how digital platforms for civic participation such as Decide Madrid and Plaza Pública are reshaping local governance. I am particularly interested in platforms and online portals that enable citizens to engage directly in decision-making processes about public resources and policies, as well as in tools that blend digital and in-person components of participation. Through a comparative case study analysis of four cities — two in Europe and two in Latin America — I investigate how these platforms can promote civic engagement across social, economic, and multiple other cleavages.
My interest in this field was spurred by the realization that the classic liberal democratic model is increasingly under strain, facing declining trust and growing citizen disengagement. New instruments and forms of governance may therefore be needed to restore public confidence and deliver meaningful change across multiple domains of government.
I believe that, when properly implemented, far-reaching innovations along participatory lines can fundamentally reshape the mandates and tasks of local governments, with positive effects for society at large.

Gustavo Cadenas Deslascio (University of Oslo)

My research focuses on the EU Global Gateway strategy, an ambitious initiative to fund sustainable development and green infrastructure worldwide, and its implementation in Latin America and the Caribbean.
My main research question is whether this strategy is actually accelerating the green transition or if it's mostly political rhetoric that hasn't changed the financial reality on the ground.
As a Latino living in Europe, with dual heritage, I’m personally invested in this bi-regional partnership. And with a background in development cooperation, I’m particularly keen in understanding what happens in that crucial, often messy, gap between policy and its implementation within the communities it's supposed to serve.
This PhD is my way of decoding that new landscape. It’s an attempt to build a bridge between the world of high-level financial architecture and the world of on-the-ground project implementation, to see if these two worlds can actually speak the same language.

Natalia Escoffier (IBEI)

My research project explores care as a concept inseparable from the economic, social, and political structures that shape our societies. I examine how institutions and actors have promoted, negotiated, or resisted the inclusion of care in their agendas to shed light on how regional and interregional cooperation can foster the recognition of this topic as a human right and a pillar for the sustainability of life. Specifically, I analyse how care has been integrated into the (bi)regional agenda across three multilevel governance settings: the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), the Regional Conferences on Women of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the bi-regional dialogues between Latin America, the Caribbean, and the European Union (LAC–EU) towards a bi-regional pact for care.
My interest in this topic stems from my concern about gender inequalities. Throughout my career, I have worked on gender-based violence prevention and public policy design. This experience, together with the insights of feminist scholars who highlight how and why care is essential to sustaining life, inspired me to focus my research on care. I am also driven by the concern that, for a long time, care has been addressed by public policy in fragmented and delayed ways — often detached from a gender and human rights perspective, and disconnected from economic and political discussions.
How we conceptualise care determines what is prioritised and how recognition is translated into policy. Examining this from a (bi)regional perspective is essential, as it allows us not only to make visible progress and tensions, but also to identify opportunities for dialogue and cooperation that may strengthen this agenda and open new pathways for rethinking human interdependence.

Domonkos Attila Bánki (FLACSO Argentina)

My research focuses on the European Union’s financial and climate diplomacy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), with particular attention to what is referred to in the academic literature as “catalytic diplomacy”. This approach seeks to understand how the EU promotes, rather than imposes, climate action and energy transitions in its LAC partners, as it acknowledges LAC state actors' agency – that is, their capacity to appropriate, reinterpret, or even redirect European initiatives according to their own national and regional priorities.
Specifically, in the thesis, I use the example of EU–LAC cooperation on renewable hydrogen to illustrate these processes (EU catalytic diplomacy and LAC agency).
My interest in this topic emerged from both personal and academic curiosity. I have long been following European integration and its external action mechanisms, especially in areas where finance and environmental policy converge. More specifically, I am drawn to understanding the dynamics of cooperation between the EU and the LAC – regions that share values, but face similar challenges as well as tensions in a dynamically changing political environment. I aim to contribute a more nuanced understanding of climate and financial diplomacy that goes beyond portraying the EU as a normative power and instead highlights the relational, negotiated, and mutually transformative engagement with the LAC region.

Joaquín Caprarulo (KU Leuven)

My research explores the participation, interaction, and normative influence of the Latin America and Caribbean Group (GRULAG) and the European Union at the UN Human Rights Council. My project examines how these two regional groups engage as norm entrepreneurs and the extent to which their cooperation contributes to the development of international human rights standards. I am particularly interested in exploring how their distinct approaches and regional backgrounds concerning international human rights normativity intersect in this organ.

What makes this project particularly compelling to me is its relevance to the challenging times in which the international human rights project finds itself. In a context of growing contestation of multilateralism and human rights norms, it is crucial that we understand how two regions that have historically defended human rights navigate these tensions. I believe that exploring how their normative ambitions converge or diverge offers a unique lens to discuss broader dynamics in international law. As a result of this research, I would like to identify new spaces for principled cooperation and to think critically about LAC-EU engagement for the years to come.

Marina Lika Uehara (University of Barcelona)

In my research project, I investigate how translation and publishing practices shape the representation of Latin America and the Caribbean and its authors. My main aim is to understand how translators, editors, and literary agents decide which stories are told, and whether those decisions challenge or reproduce colonial and political stereotypes.
Through textual analysis, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, I examine how these actors become cultural mediators that can either reinforce Eurocentric imaginaries or open space for more diverse and authentic representations of LAC voices. Using a qualitative approach that includes relational curatorship and social network mapping, I trace how translated works circulate and the networks that sustain them.
My interest in this field stems from my experiences as an Okinawan-Brazilian researcher who has lived and worked across different academic, professional, and cultural contexts. I have seen how literature can both connect and divide worlds, and I believe translation plays a crucial role in mediating those encounters. These experiences taught me how storytelling builds communities and how access to literature shapes visibility and belonging.
I hope my research will not only shed light on how literary markets construct representation but also help foster more equitable and inclusive publishing practices across continents.

What’s next?

The network will be very active in the upcoming months with many events and conferences taking place in Latin America.

FLACSO Argentina will host the VI Congreso Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Ciencias Sociales — Pensar el futuro: Transformaciones sociales en América Latina y el Caribe on 5-7 November. Researchers and doctoral candidates from our network will participate in this event, which will bring together global specialists and further consolidate our activities in Latin America.

The EU-CELAC Academic Forum will take place during the same week, on 6-7 November. Organized by Universidad de Los Andes and the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, this academic and policy event will bring together renowned leaders, diplomats, scholars and practitioners from Europe and Latin America to discuss shared challenges and opportunities in global governance, digital transitions, human rights, climate action, and peacebuilding. Doctoral fellows Ana Obando and Joaquín Caprarulo will participate in this event as panel moderators.

These events will be immediately followed by the fourth EU–CELAC Summit, taking place on 9 and 10 November in Santa Marta, Colombia. Supported by the EU–LAC Foundation, one of our partner institutions, this summit is a major milestone in the relationship between the two regions. It will serve as a platform to align agendas and strengthen cooperation amidst the current geopolitical transformations.

Lastly, on 10–12 November, some of our fellows and partner institutions will participate in the International Conference on Trade, Investment, Finance, and Sustainable Development in EU–LAC Relations. Hosted by the National University of Rosario (Argentina) and supported by the EULAS Network, this conference will feature the participation of many of our network’s researchers. Doctoral candidates Ana Obando and Domonkos Bánki will present advances in their respective research projects.

The network will meet again in March 2026 at FLACSO Argentina in Buenos Aires for our next mid-term meeting. PhD fellows will present the progress of their research and continue exchanging experiences with peers and supervisors.

Thank you for reading!

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