Harvard University’s Center for Latin American Studies presents, “The New Neoliberal Experiment in Latin America: Honduran ZEDEs or Private Cities.”

Speakers include Venessa Cardenas Woods, Vice President of the Crawfish Rock Governing Council; Member of the Coordinating Board for Territorial Defense of the Bay Islands in Honduras; Lucía Vijil Saybe, researcher and analyst at Centre for the Study of Democracy (CESPAD); Beth Geglia, public anthropologist focusing on processes of privatization and accumulation in urban and rural settings, tech capitalism, alternative economies, and human rights; Oscar Orlando Hendrix, human rights defender, lawyer, public policy consultant, and member of the Honduran National Movement against the ZEDES.

Moderated by: María José Méndez, Junior Fellow at Harvard Society of Fellows; incoming Assistant Professor in the Political Sciences, University of Toronto.

“While ZEDEs have been praised by libertarians as one of the most innovative special jurisdictions in the world, allowing for sweeping regulatory autonomy from the state, Hondurans have mounted a common front against them. Campesino, Indigenous, and Black communities, for instance, fear the corporate takeover of their land and decry the neocolonial character of these enclaves. This panel will unfold the dangers that the ZEDEs neoliberal experiment poses to democracy, sovereignty, and black and indigenous lands.”

This event is sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and the Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective. To find out more about the speakers/event, click here: https://drclas.harvard.edu/…/new-neoliberal-experiment…