News

Water Futures Series: Rethinking Water in Mexico Through Regional and Binational Perspectives

October 19, 2026

As droughts and flooding increasingly shape our climate-changed world, understanding water challenges requires looking beyond a single region or a one-size-fits-all solution. The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard...

Vanessa Sander Spotlight: When Protection Becomes Expansion: LGBTQ+ Rights and the Brazilian Carceral State

October 08, 2026

When anthropologist Vanessa Sander, the Spring 2026 Lemann Visiting Scholar at DRCLAS, first began working with transgender women engaged in sex work in her hometown in Brazil, she noticed a recurring pattern. One week, a woman would be working on the...

Why Brazil? Why Harvard? The DRCLAS Harvard Brazil Office at 20

October 07, 2026

For 20 years, the DRCLAS Harvard Brazil Office has helped answer those questions by building relationships between people and institutions across Harvard and Brazil. What began as a physical presence in São Paulo has grown into a foundation for research...

From Portuguese at Home to Food Policy Research in Brazil

October 01, 2026

For Sophia Mills '27, Brazil felt familiar long before she ever visited. Growing up, her father spoke Portuguese at home, teaching her words and phrases that sparked an early curiosity about the language and culture. Years later, that curiosity led her to...

What Happens When Cities Grow Outward? Professor Diane Davis on Mexico’s Urban Future

September 21, 2026

Over the past three decades, Mexico’s urban population has grown dramatically. But that growth has not been distributed evenly across cities. Research presented at Tecnológico de Monterrey, a leading university in Mexico, reveals a striking national...

The Business of Belonging: Fraud and Markets in Bolivia

September 21, 2026

2024-25 Associate Scholar Susan Ellison's ethnographic research in Bolivia challenges conventional understandings of fraud, revealing how multilevel marketing companies speak to broader questions of trust, race, and economic opportunity. When...

Seeing Mexico and Brazil Through Students’ Eyes

September 18, 2026

During the 2026 Summer Internship Program, students in Mexico and Brazil were invited to explore that question through the SIP Photo Competition. More than simply documenting their travels, participants were asked to pair each photograph with a reflection...

Report: Harvard Working Group on Cuba's Future

September 10, 2026

Over the past six months, the Cuban Studies Program and the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard have convened a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to examine the crisis facing Cuba and develop recommendations for addressing it. This...

Building Classrooms That Welcome Every Student: Professor María Luisa Parra on Inclusive Education

September 08, 2026

A child who speaks an Indigenous language, a student who grew up between Mexico and the United States, a young person who arrives at a new school after moving with their family. Their experiences are different, but they may all face the same question when...

Meet the 2026–27 DRCLAS Graduate Student Associates

September 04, 2026

DRCLAS is pleased to welcome our 2026–27 cohort of Graduate Student Associates (GSAs), bringing together students from across Harvard whose research engages with Latin America and the Caribbean from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. This year...

Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers: Harvard Brazil Office Celebrates 20 Years in São Paulo

September 02, 2026

For two decades, the DRCLAS Brazil Office has helped create lasting connections between Harvard and Brazil through research, teaching, student engagement, and academic partnerships. On August 19, the Harvard community in Brazil – faculty, students, alumni...

New Research Directions on Faith, Politics, and the Future of Democracy

August 27, 2026

What happens when religious faith enters the political arena? For Raúl Zegarra, Assistant Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, the answer is more complicated than conventional narratives about religion and politics...