By Eduardo Caceres-Sandoval
With effect from 1 January 2024 the Australian National Centre for Latin American Studies (ANCLAS), Australia’s only remaining centre for Latin American studies, ceased operations. Its closure has been marked by silence, defunding and staff support being withdrawn without public announcement except to key behind-the-scenes stakeholders (embassies). The circumstances of ANCLAS’s closure provides a compelling case study on the processes of course cuts, political funding and the consequences for students, stakeholders and the public.
The Background
The origins of ANCLAS trace back to the late 1980s, starting from The Magellan Society. It began as a joint project between the Spanish and Mexican Embassy, with the support of former Vice Chancellor, Professor D.A.Low.
By the late 1990s, the project had expanded to include all relevant Latin American embassies.
However, funding issues plagued the organisation from the outset, and by 1997, the Magellan Society ceased to operate.
In July 1999, ANU signed a declaration of intent with nine Latin American embassies to cooperate in Latin American studies (LAS). This culminated in the formation of ANCLAS on 20 June 2000, with a mandate of promoting Latin American Studies, specifically in the fields of H.A.S.S, business and economics in addition to forming a research network.
Initially operating with an annual budget of $60,000* drawn from the College of Arts & Social Sciences (CASS) through the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIR), supplemented by occasional grants offered by the Council on Latin American Relations (COALAR). ANCLAS would experience its boom in the mid-2000s, coinciding with the launch of Australia’s first and only degree in Latin American Studies.
However, rapid changes in the leadership of SPIR during 2014-2017 would see support for ANCLAS wane. Courses offered by SPIR on LAS were cut. Additionally, staff with expertise in the region had their contracts discontinued and were not replaced.
Funding was cut to $20,000 from 2016-2017, damaging the profile of the centre.
Results of funding cuts
More damage was caused when founding director John Minns resigned in 2016- rumoured amongst members of the Latin American Student Association and colleagues to be in reaction to sharp declines in funding, further reductions in staff and associated course cuts to external ANU programs that the ANCLAS professors were tied to. This has had long-term impacts over the years, causing further complications for students interested in the field.
Laura Klein was one of the last students who took Latin American studies as a minor until it was cut by ANU in 2022. She says it was hard to complete her minor as “there were 2 or 3 mandated courses, but only one of them ran during the three years I was in university.”
An ANU spokesperson contested that “no Latin American studies courses or programs were run out of ANCLAS, and therefore no courses or core academic activities have been cancelled as a consequence of this planned closure”.
They highlighted that Spanish Language, Literature and Linguistics classes would continue. While technically true, ANCLAS’ activities were in practice specifically associated with key social, political, and economic developments in the region, consistent with CASS’s Strategic Priorities Plan of 2022-2025 “to increase multidisciplinary comparative and international research projects/collaborations focusing on issues of regional significance”.
The future of Latin American studies
The closure of ANCLAS was then a consequence, as a University spokesperson would describe, of “refining its activities and identifying ways to invest its funding to greatest effect.”
This comes in light of a general trend towards privatising Australian universities. Private sources of funding have doubled, increasing from 21.7 in 1995 to 43 per cent in 2019. At ANU, overall government contribution to degrees has decreased from 58 to 52 per cent during the COVID years (2020-2024).
The 2017 $2.2bn funding cut among others that occurred under successive Liberal Coalition Government has coincided with the decline of LAS as well as other non-stem courses at ANU.
Ex-Ambassador to Argentina, Noel Campbell, outgoing Director of ANCLAS (2019-2024), prepared a review of possible options for future operations of ANCLAS, considered by the CASS Executive throughout April. However, the decision to close the centre had already been announced to stakeholders by CASS officials in advance of the report being completed.
The former director stated that stakeholder feedback on the decision from the Group of Eight Universities, senior Australian officials, think tanks, Latin American embassies and elsewhere has been “without exception… negative”.
Despite this, the executive determined that having a dedicated centre for Latin American Studies in CASS was no longer the most appropriate model. Campbell’s consultations within CASS would find the rationale for the decision to close ANCLAS was based upon reducing ANU’s multi-million dollar operating deficit and the lack of dedicated “Latin Americanists”.
Stakeholders considered the closure of this one-of-a-kind centre in Australia will “leave a gap in academic capability and scholarship, which a much-needed national centre was best placed to fill”. They expressed scepticism that financial restraints or the lack of a cohort of Latin Americanists were convincing arguments.
With the budget for ANCLAS activities in 2023 measuring $20,000 in small research grants, it was pointed out that $20,000 would be insignificant in achieving this goal. While ANU possesses few distinct “Latin Americanist” researchers, there were pockets of research across ANU’s schools which drew on the region’s experiences in addressing issues such as management of extractive industries, indigenous rights, narco-trafficking and irregular migration.
Marcos Penteado, President of the ANU Latin American Students Association, expressed a concern, shared by Latin American diplomats, about the perception that Latin America was being targeted. This is taken as indicative of a limited, less global trend of Eurocentrism at the College of Arts & Social Sciences.
“The Centre of European Studies, untouched. The Centre for Australian federalism, not eliminated- just defunded… all the other centres were untouched… they [ANU] decide to fully eliminate the one centre as far as I know that does deal with something outside of eurocentric perspectives,” he says.
ANCLAS alone, of 19 centres in CASS, has been closed.
In response, the ANU spokesperson claimed that the College has offered an alternative alternative to ANCLAS, namely, The Global South Visiting Fellowship Program (GSVFP), in addition to the future establishment of a cross-institutional Latin American Studies Research Network.
To put this in perspective, the GSVFP program offers “up to four Fellowships” to applicants from the OECD’s list of countries receiving Official Development Assistance, representative of the “Global South”. Latin American countries are amongst this list of 141 countries. The outgoing director of ANCLAS would describe claims of this program as being an alternative to ANCLAS to be “somewhat overstated”.
At the time of writing in Late August, the Observer is unaware of a “cross-institutional Latin American Studies Research Network” having been announced. Currently lacking a mandate, funding, coordinator or members.
Disclaimer:
Reporter Eduardo Caceres-Sandoval is a member of LASA. Information was gained through this. All information has been verified.
*Figure is disputed, contact [email protected] if able to correct
Graphics by Shé Chani
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