A turning point: decolonization and the future of Latin Americanstudies in the UK

by Irene Mamani-Velazco

Participating in the conference Future Archives: Forging the Next Generation of Latin

American Studies, organized by The Postgraduates in Latin American Studies (PILAS)

Network was part of a longer process: one of honing not just my English language

skills, but my ability to put thoughts into words. Putting the abstract world into words

isn’t always an easy process. Nor is it a solitary one; it requires a supportive

community willing to listen, even your errors. I wonder what would become of

students like me, those still finding their way, with more questions than answers, full

of uncertainty, always feeling they need just a little more time before they're ready,

without a space like PILAS. The conference reminded me that you don't need to spend

more hours at your desk overthinking: you just have to show up, speak, and people

will listen. PILAS and The Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) will appreciate

your work and your voice.

Attending the conference was an incredible experience, but it was also highly

demanding to have to pay attention to so many presentations in a single day. The

topics spanned various disciplines, focused on different countries and involved a

number of universities from the United Kingdom. At the end of the day, I found it

difficult to summarize the presentations and identify clear common threads. But one

thing that really caught my attention was the role of artificial intelligence and archives

in current Latin American studies. I saw brilliant work, ranging from that of Professor

Thea Pitman, who presented the progress of her research on the recovery of

indigenous women’s memories in Cochabamba, Bolivia (my country) to an initiative to

preserve non-traditional archives aimed at defending workers’ rights in Brazil. On my

way home, I caught myself saying, “Tomorrow I’m going to look for a guide on how to

use images with artificial intelligence.” What a change! I’ve always rejected the use of

AI.

Beyond my own experience, though, the conference sparked something more

structural in my thinking: the question of who produces knowledge, and about whom.

I met brilliant Latin American students, most of them doctoral researchers working on

their countries of origin. Greta Bustamante Hernández, from the University of Leeds,

studying citizen participation in local government in Mexico. Consuelo Andrade, from

the University of Bristol, researching feminist street art in Chile. I kept asking myself:

why had they chosen to study South American realities? Is it self-determination, or is

it something more uncomfortable, a colonial structure that quietly dictates who

studies whom? As far as I could tell, no one from South America was there researching

English archives or realities. That's not a coincidence.

Some might say: well, this is a Latin American Studies conference, not an English

Studies one. Fair point. But there's another explanation, and it cuts deeper: the

coloniality of knowledge production. Studies like 'Why are you not doing research in

your home country?' by Abasli, El Assal, and Hafez show that scholars from the Global

South are implicitly expected to study their home countries, occupying insider

positions, while Western scholars are encouraged to approach the Global South from

the outside, as development experts. Researchers from already marginalised contexts

are pushed toward local case studies, and those who dare to break that mold are made

to justify themselves. This is the persistent logic of coloniality, one that limits Global

South researchers to explaining their homes while quietly blocking their path to

becoming "experts" anywhere else.

SLAS and PILAS, as one of the most important communities promoting Latin American

studies in the United Kingdom, has a responsibility to address these issues head-on.

As an academic community led by people from Latin America, it has legitimate

authority to speak about the coloniality of power: the asymmetries that continue to

shape research, funding, and whose knowledge is valued. As Schöpf, Daduya, Kitossa,

Purkayastha, and Chew argue in “Re-thinking the decolonization of knowledge and

dismantling of intellectual Imperialism”, examining these deep-rooted inequalities

and the need to decolonize European academia is not secondary to academic work;

rather, it is fundamental. It is a matter of epistemic and social justice. This was, after

all, the spirit that gave rise to SLAS six decades ago, in 1962.

These reflections may not map directly onto the 2026 PILAS Conference program, but

the quality of the presentations and the energy of the organizers made me want to

keep thinking long after the event ended. I cannot fully express my gratitude to

everyone who poured their time, creativity, and care into making PILAS possible. And

to all the participants: thank you for planting seeds for a better Latin America and

world.