Call for Papers

Thirty years ago, the signing of the peace agreement in Guatemala ended a 36-year armed conflict that left more than 200,000 dead and closed a cycle of civil wars in Central America marked by foreign intervention and serious human rights violations. The transition to civilian governments in Central America was accompanied by the expectation of building more inclusive, just, and democratic societies. However, that promise did not fully materialize. The implementation of the so-called Washington Consensus limited the resources available to address the structural causes of the conflicts and weakened the capacity of the states, while strengthening national and transnational elites. As a result, criminal violence, corruption, drug trafficking, and organized crime expanded, while the poverty and inequality that had been at the root of the wars persisted. The weakness—and even complicity—of the state in confronting these phenomena eroded public confidence in democracy and opened the door to tolerance of authoritarian and regressive projects.

Faced with this crossroads, LASA is inaugurating its first regional symposium, LASA Central America, to create a space to think, analyze, and reflect on the challenges this region is currently facing, and on how our academic community can contribute by proposing new ways of understanding reality in order to change it. Central America is undergoing a crisis of great magnitude, characterized by democratic regression, the closure of civic spaces, the weakening of the rule of law, and the criminalization of dissent. Nicaragua is under an openly authoritarian regime, and in El Salvador, the concentration of power around indefinite presidential reelection has accelerated the shift towards authoritarian rule. Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama oscillate between pressure from social movements demanding greater transparency and inclusion and political and economic elites seeking to preserve privileges. In this scenario, lawfare has consolidated as a strategy for persecuting independent justice operators, community leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, and activists, while direct violence against indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, and environmental defenders remains a persistent feature. Even Costa Rica, considered for decades a regional exception, is now facing increasing levels of corruption and political instability.

The crisis is also evident in the daily lives of Central American peoples. The intersection between social, territorial, and economic factors is evident in the unequal impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, which force entire communities to displace themselves after losing land, resources, and livelihoods in processes of dispossession associated with extractive projects and dynamics of violence. These displacements, which affect rural, indigenous, and Afro-descendant populations, generate new forms of uprooting and community fragmentation. At the same time, job insecurity and the invisibility of care work deepen gender and class gaps, sustaining an economic model based on the exploitation and overburdening of women with unpaid tasks.

In this context, violence has become a structural and multidimensional phenomenon. High rates of homicide, forced disappearances, femicide, and youth homicide coexist with state repression and the criminalization of protest. These dynamics reinforce impunity and reproduce an authoritarian order that limits citizen participation and undermines democratic institutions. Historical memory is therefore a contentious issue: defending it is essential for resisting oblivion, demanding justice, and laying the foundations for a more dignified future.

 Faced with this scenario, social and community resistance movements have adopted creative and counter-hegemonic strategies. Indigenous, campesino, feminist, youth, community, and LGBTQIA+ movements are weaving struggles to defend territories, bodies, and memories against extractivism, patriarchy, racism, and authoritarian rule. These movements not only confront structural violence but also build alternatives for life based on social justice, environmental sustainability, and human rights.

 In this context, the first regional symposium of LASA in San José, Costa Rica, is both a call to action and a commitment. It is an invitation to the academic community, journalists, artists, and activists to participate in a decentralized space for collective reflection on the great challenges facing Central America: the advance of authoritarianism, the expansion of illicit economies, the dispute over territories, the climate crisis, structural violence, and, at the same time, the multiple forms of resistance that are rising up against them. The LASA Central America Regional Symposium is also a commitment to building a space for the exchange of academic, community, and artistic knowledge, with the conviction that only through plural and transdisciplinary dialogues is it possible to construct the critical knowledge necessary to understand current dilemmas and imagine more democratic, sustainable, and dignified futures for the peoples of Central America. The organizing committee of the LASA Central America Regional Symposium invites researchers from within and outside academia to submit their proposals for academic panels (between 3 and 5 speakers), individual presentations, roundtables, and/or book presentations on one of the tracks before the deadline of February 12, 2026.