Episode #27 - JANUary 1st, 2021

Over the past several years, attention has waxed and waned on a number of global conflicts that are more important to global affairs than their coverage seems to give them.  In this month's episode, we talk with Alejandro Velasco, Associate Professor at NYU, about the current crisis in Venezuela. We also speak with Elise Giuliano about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. As you will hear, just because coverage of these issues have disappeared, doesn't mean they are any less important or challenging.

Alejandro Velasco - Alejandro Velasco is a historian of modern Latin America whose research and teaching interests are in the areas of social movements, urban culture and democratization. His book, Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela (University of California Press, 2015), couples archival and ethnographic research to examine how residents of Venezuela’s largest public housing community pursued full citizenship during the heyday of Latin America’s once-model democracy. Before joining the Gallatin faculty, Professor Velasco taught at Hampshire College, where he was a Five College Fellow, and at Duke University. 

Elise Giuliano-  A Lecturer in the Political Science Department at Columbia University and Director of Graduate Studies of the MA program at The Harriman Institute. Her research focuses on the politics of ethnic identity, especially the question of how ethnicity impacts popular attitudes and political mobilization. Her award-winning book, Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia’s Republics (Cornell University Press, 2011), examines minority support for nationalist separatism in Russia’s ethnic republics. She has published articles on Islam in Russia (including Chechnya) and the popular response to natural disaster in Russia. Currently, Giuliano is researching how the crisis in Ukraine has influenced political opinion among Ukrainian citizens—especially in the understudied eastern regions of the country. She has published on the origins of support for separatism in the Donbas region and has done field research in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

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